


Outside By the Blue, Blue Moon

by ninhursag



Series: Outside By the Blue, Blue Moon [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curses, Demon Sex, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-17
Updated: 2007-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:25:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam makes a sacrifice to save his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the culmination of my massive amounts of crazy. These people need to be thanked- for encouraging me in my inane ramblings and random posting of story bits in AIM and generally putting up with me kkscatnip. And for even more encouragement and the read through, nova_berry . And thank you for a very thorough beta britomart_is. This story clocks in at about 24,000 words, give or take. There\\\'s also a Dean pov side story that\\\'s set between parts one and two timelinewise.

May 1998

Sam woke up on the third morning drenched in sweat and clawing his way out from under scratchy motel sheets. Alone alone alone. He saw that the clock on the nightstand was blinking seven AM in his face. That was when he started to panic. _Hard-wheezing-into-a-paper-bag-uncertain_ panic, quickly followed by _get up and punch the wall to calm himself down_ panic because after this long Dean would have, should have, at least let him know something was up. Dean knew better than to just up and abandon Sam, knew what it felt like even if Dad didn't.

His dreams had been full of chasing Dean and Dad through dark passageways, both of them staying just out of earshot, just out of reach. The walls dripped blood that didn't belong to any monster. Sam wasn't sure if he'd been in the library too long, researching the local legends or if his brain was just working overtime.

All Sam's research had indicated that it would be a simple salt and burn ghost gig, less than a day, and then Dad and Dean back again. No need to bring him along, not for this. Sam knew as well as anyone that a hunt didn't always work out like they'd planned, but this time knowing that did nothing to ease the fear.

Even through waves of terror, Sam was with it enough to know that if it were just Dad he'd assume, whatever. Dad would just grimace and say that he 'lost track of time sometimes, you boys can take care of yourselves'. Privately, Sam was sure he just didn't give a fuck. Weeks without word, while he tracked down a haunting or a creature, too obsessed to take time out for a phone call. Dean was the one who had time for Sam. The one who managed to let Sam know somehow that things were cool, before he went out of his mind, even if he gave him shit for acting like someone's worried mother.

Dean would have told him by now if everything were okay. Sam told himself that to rationalize his breathing-into-bags freak-out and the way he'd just cracked his knuckle using the wall as a weapon. Otherwise he would have had to face up to the fact he'd split his knuckle open for nothing, because of some… creepy vision out of his dreams and that- well, that was just pathetic.

That afternoon Sam began the process of retracing their steps, trying to think about what he'd do if he were like Dean, and telling himself he wasn't being a pathetic girl over this. If there really was something that had taken down two experienced hunters- neither of whom were fifteen with feet too big for the rest of them and clothes that never fit right- Sam knew that he had to be ready. For anything.

Going versus waiting was no decision at all, not when every inch of skin crawled and the air seemed to whisper at him, ‘alone, forgotten’. If Dean were here, he'd laugh too loud and call Sam a drama queen, but Dean not being here was kind of the problem.

Sam had his earlier research to start with, thanks to the hours spent in the local history room of the town library, sitting in a too narrow chair with his knees practically up to his chin, making nice with the town historian and being told how much she wished her grandchildren were just like him. He knew it wasn't enough, that whatever he'd found must not have helped Dad and Dean much at all, but it was the only place he had to start.

The historian was there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but only until one, so he knew he had to haul ass. Today more than before, since there was no one to give him a ride this time out and the buses ran every other hour if they felt like it. Sam ran instead, not even wincing at the impact of pavement right through the worn soles of his sneakers or the random shouts of drivers who looked like they'd never seen a runner before in their little suburban lives.

The historian was a white-haired woman who said, "Call me Alice, kid" the first time they met and carried around knitting needles. Sam showed up in the backroom drenched in sweat from the run, T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, and she just raised an eyebrow.

"I'd guess you urgently need some more back up material for that research project, Sam?" she said and raised a snowy brow.

Sam actually managed a smile for her. "Yeah, I guess. I thought I was done, but my teacher wants me to dig a little deeper."

Alice put down her needles and adjusted her glasses. "Hmm… well, you've already tapped out what we have here. The Islip Creature isn't exactly a well-documented historical event, kiddo. What we've got is a lot of rumor and drunk kids trying to explain breaking curfew to their parents."

Sam nodded, because he'd pretty much known that. He wouldn't have given Dad and Dean any less information than everything he could dig up. He forced a smile, but it was hard. "Yeah, I was just hoping there was something else. That you might have thought of something else since we last talked."

She laughed, in the way older people who didn't get it did when Sam was being serious. "Sam, I wish my grandson was half as serious as you about his schoolwork. Well, if you want rumor, not fact, you're in luck. Irene just pulled into town yesterday."

"Irene?" Sam said, trying not to feel too much hope, not yet. The name alone shouldn't make him feel like he was on to something. Shouldn’t feel like it clicked with one of his half-remembered dreams. "Who is Irene?"

"Irene Winston, and don't let her tell you anything different. She'll go on about being a gypsy witch if you let her." Alice shook her head. "But she's from Islip, lived here all her life until she got it in her head that she wanted to travel."

"And she'd know something?" Sam leaned forward unconsciously. Chewed at his pen cap.

"If she doesn't then there's nothing to know. Irene used to collect all the stories that were gruesome, grotesque and paranormal. Said she was a ghost hunter." Alice laughed again, deep and merry and fearless like the type of person who could just laugh at the idea of there being ghosts to hunt. Jealousy twisted in Sam's stomach, fighting fear and worry until he managed to banish all three and just concentrate. "Ghost hunter, I tell you, kid. Hanging around cemeteries and old asylums with little toys that go beep when there's a ghost around."

Sam nodded, and the feeling of clicking, of rightness, was almost a physical sensation. He found himself smiling and nodding along. "Yeah. That's weird. That's really weird. Where can I meet her?"

Alice told him and it turned out to be easy. Sam hadn't expected that. His hands were shaking and they only stopped when he shoved them into his pockets. It was all he could do not to look over his shoulder every ten seconds, but if it came, trouble was going to come from the front anyway. At least he thought so.

There wasn't really anything like a town center, but Irene Winston had set up shop in a pavilion in the local park, giving tarot readings. Sam managed not to roll his eyes. Irene was younger than he'd expected, older than Dean, but probably not by much. He thought he'd recognize her face the way he'd thought he recognized her name, but she was just some girl dressed like a hippie in loose skirts and a floppy shirt. He would have passed her on the street without looking back.

Her hair was frizzy, like out of a comic book. When Sam walked up close enough to see her well, she looked up from her cards. Her eyes were very black, and she stared shamelessly, like she'd never seen anything quite like him in her life before. Sam watched her right back.

She looked old to him, adult, and curved everywhere the way the girls at school weren't. She didn't smile. There was something in the lines of her mouth that said she maybe never smiled. It had been four days since he'd last seen Dean and he had no idea what to do.

"Sit," she said, without asking him for money or for his name or for anything else. The customer in the chair just looked confused, but Irene waved him away. "You, sit. Think of your question and I'll cut the deck."

Sam wanted to say he didn't have time for this. His hands were shaking and somewhere, somehow, Dean and Dad were in trouble and he needed to act on it. He needed to know where to fucking start but all he could do was glare at Irene, eyes full of that need. "Okay," he whispered.

"You're afraid," Irene said. She cut the deck with both hands, quick and graceful and her dark eyes stayed fixed on Sam the whole time.

"I'm not," Sam spat out reflexively. He flushed and stared at the thick wooden slats of the table. "I'm not," he said, softer. "I just need your help."

"I'm helping you," Irene said. She laid the first card on the table. "This is you. The hanged man," she said, and shook her head. "Reversed."

"What's that mean?" Sam muttered. He had his chin resting on his fist, not quite knowing what he was doing, as she spread the cards out in a half-circular pattern.

"It's you, that's what it means. How you read it depends on the spread. Sacrifice, probably. Submission. I don't know, exactly, the question was yours." Irene nodded to herself and began to turn over the other cards.

"Too many from swords," she said, and her frizzy hair bounced when she moved her head. "Your life is just one big tragedy, isn't it kid?"

At that Sam tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. Like she knew anything about him. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Whatever. How is this helping me?"

"You'll see," she said as she finished with the cards. She hummed faintly but audibly under her breath. "There's something-- a loss? You're haunted, or you will be. A powerful entity. The devil. Power corrupted. Degradation. "

Sam's palms itched and he could feel the sweat on the back of his neck but he looked right at her, straight in the eye. Too much was at stake here. "That wasn't my question," he said, slow and soft. She was the one who flinched.

"Yes it was," she said despite the wince. Her voice was steady, even though she wasn't meeting his gaze anymore. "That's what you'll get if you succeed. Degradation, corruption. Those are your rewards. And this is your only warning."

"I hear you," Sam said. Crazy. She was just nuts, that had to be it. He forced himself to look her in the eye. "You said you were going to help me. Alice told me you could tell me things about the Islip Horror."

Irene gave a curved half smile that twisted her face out of all its prettiness. "I could tell you to run. That would help, if you did it fast and didn't stop."

Sam wanted to laugh, because if Dean were here, Dean would laugh. Dean wouldn't care, wouldn't be so afraid that he had to ball up his hands and jam them into his knees to keep them from rocking. Dean wouldn't freak out, not just because some girl fortuneteller was saying insane things to him. "I won't," he said. "I won't run."

"I'll tell you something else. Not from the cards, just what I wish someone had told me when I was your age," she said. Her lips curled downwards, twisting her mouth even more. It made her grotesque and Sam couldn't look away. "For a person with power, a person like you, innocence is a damned valuable commodity."

"Yeah. Okay." Sam nodded like he knew what she was talking about. He watched her hands instead of her mouth, the quick, nimble slide of fingers on cards, dancing over them. Dad and Dean could do that too, with playing cards. They were good at it in a way that Sam's adolescent awkward fingers couldn't be.

Irene stopped right in the middle of gathering her deck and looked back up at Sam half way through. "All I mean is, get a good price for your innocence. Because if you don't sell it, someone will take it."

Sam shrugged. "Look, I just want to find out what it is. The creature. How to stop it."

Irene just stared for a long moment, before she laughed outright, bright peals of laughter for a naïve little kid, long enough for dull red to creep up Sam's neck. "What do you think it is, a ghost or something, kid? You can't stop it."

And that, that was what he was so afraid of. Something too horrible for even Dad to take care of. But then, Irene had never met his dad, never met Dean. She didn't know them, what they could do. She didn't know Sam. Sam took an unsteady breath. "What is it then?"

"I told you," she said and then held a card up for him. The devil, goat horned and grinning lasciviously at Sam. Like it was ready to wink. Sam's skin went from hot to cold in seconds. Irene laughed again. It was horrible. "It's still not too late to run. Sammy Winchester, it knows you're here."

He’d never told her his name. Sam's head jerked up and he hissed, _"Christo_. _Christo_."

She flinched and he could see the inky black stain of her eyes as they rolled up in her head. He was already on his feet, mind kicking into gear, wishing he had holy water, wondering how fast he could spit out an exorcism before she could stop him.

She laughed, lower and crueler than before. "Oh, Sammy. Don't you know, this is all for you. I'll be waiting." She caught him by the cheek, lightening fast, grabbed him close and kissed him, thick and wicked and wet. Terror spiked right down his spine and to his dick.

The black nightmare of her eyes faded from velvety infinity to something like normal darkness. Irene collapsed like the strings had been cut, the demonic darkness spilling out of her mouth, her eyes, her nose and hissing into the air, fleeing a physical thing.

Sam stood there, swaying on his feet, shaking and unable to stop while Irene twitched on the floor like a broken doll, spit bubbling out of her mouth. When her eyes opened again, they were still black, but human dark, animal dark, and her hands shook when they reached out for Sam's, grasping for him. He took them, even though it was hard to stand there, hard to do anything but run.

"Run," she whispered, in a horrific rough burnt out husk of a voice. "It wants... it wants-- you. You're what it wants."

"Where can I find it?" Sam whispered back, almost as rough. And his brain screamed at him. Dad and Dean were missing. Dean and Dad who had left him behind with his schoolbooks and nightmares while they faced the evil alone. Evil wanted him. He could taste its kiss on his mouth and he couldn't ask Irene why, what for, any of that.

"Don't find it. Run, Sam," she hissed. "What it wants to do to you-"

"It has my brother," Sam said. His hands tightened around hers, hard. "My dad. You tell me where I can find it."

She tugged him down so that his ear was a level with her mouth, used strength she shouldn't have had and whispered, "If they love you, they'd want you to run."

Sam rocked back on his heels, staring. He shook his head. "That's not true," he said, just to hear the words out loud. "Stop talking about things you don't know anything about and tell me what I want to know." He could taste the edges on his own voice and Irene flinched like she had Dad in her face instead of just Sam.

"I found it in a house. Just a regular house on an ordinary street," she mumbled.

"Where," Sam said, and he already had pen a paper out, dug from his pocket. "Where?"

The house, when he got there, thanks to a circuitous bus ride and a cab at the end of that, was definitely the right one. Sam knew because the Impala was there, parked right down the block. Empty and waiting, and if the hood weren't cool to Sam's touch, he'd have been able to imagine that they'd just arrived. That he could still catch up if he hurried.

He hurried, almost running down the street. It looked like any house, two stories, two-car garage, a flag hanging off the mailbox. Sam took a deep breath and walked up the driveway.

The door was open, swinging easily at his touch, like it had been waiting for him. Inside it was empty and bone clean, not even dust marring the cool surface of the wood. Every room of the house was equally empty, no Dean. No Dad. No creature either. It was enough to make Sam want to scream frustration. The Impala was here, damnit. This had to be it.

"Where the fuck are you?" he hissed at nothing in particular.

That was when a door swung open. A door that hadn't been there before. And Sam saw the creature for the first time.

It looked like something out of someone's wet dream, but Sam wasn't sure whose. Tall and glossy, with just the hint of curves in almost the right places. It had the bulge of breasts and another bulge between its legs, as if it were male and aroused. Neither nor. Sam sucked in a breath and it smiled at him.

"It took long enough," it hummed, tossing its glossy black hair. "I've been here for fucking years waiting for someone like you to come along."

Sam just glared. He had a knife and salt and holy water. That would have to do. "Where are my dad and brother?" he demanded.

"Ah, yes. Them. Boring, really." It pursed its lips and then drew a line across the wall, like he was drawing a window. And then, through it Sam could see them. In a small, lightless room, looking uninjured but angry. Bound hand and foot with thick looking ropes. "As you can see, I haven't hurt them," it said and yawned, like it really was all boring. Like Dad and Dean were nothing at all.

Sam choked, harsh and breathless. "What do you want from them?" he forced out. He could see Irene, broken and crumpled, drool on her lips, hissing, 'you're what it wants'.

It laughed. Its mouth was very red, like it was painted on. "Nothing. I don't want anything from anyone but you. My dear boy, they're just bait."

Sam hands clenched at his sides and tried to glare it down. It didn't look so tough. It looked like a good crack in the jaw would make it hurt. He moved fast, lashed out, and then his fists touched air as it laughed and pushed him off balance, sending him sprawling face down to the floor.

It laughed. Rich, warm laughter, like Dean when he had a girl climbing into his lap. "Now, now, no need for violence. I just want to make a deal." It was still laughing as it slid down between his legs, pressing surprisingly big, shockingly cold hands against the small of his back. Laughing when it pulled the vials of holy water and salt out of his pocket and smashed each one against the wall with a sickening crashing sound.

Of course pinning Sam was nothing to it. It had caught Dad and Dean. It was still whispering to him, even as he shuddered. "What do you say? Just a small thing, nothing you'll miss, and then you get your father and brother back, safe and sound and, oh, even better. Ignorant."

Sam squirmed back, bucking it off. He suspected that it let him. It was smiling when he looked up to face it. "What?" he demanded. "My soul?"

It laughed, more of that low, sweet sarcastic laughter. "No, no, nothing like that. I'm not in the business of collecting souls. I'll leave that for boring whiners that hang around at crossroads because they can't get laid."

"What then?" Sam bit his tongue around a remark about getting laid. He really didn't want to go there.

"Your time. Your... willingness." Its chin tilted and it smiled, moving its hands up against Sam's shoulders as if to illustrate that it didn't need him willing, that it could take. Sam jumped back, arms out, as if to keep it back, even though he doubted he could. It grinned, white teeth gleaming in the dim light. "My word, I won't hurt you. Much. And you'll learn something useful about yourself."

"Why?" Sam muttered. "All of this for- why me?"

"I told you, I don't collect souls. I collect other things." It reached out and stroked Sam's shoulder, gentle enough to make him want to crawl out of his own skin. "And what I want is a month of your time."

"A month?" Sam whispered. A night felt like forever. He wanted out of here. With Dad and Dean on either side of him, keeping it from touching him. He wanted them to be far away and safe so he could tell it to fuck off, and just run. "That's a long time. I'm not letting you leave them in the dark for a month."

It inclined its head, soft, glossy looking hair sliding over its eyes and covering its smile. "I will release them as soon as the bargain is struck. A month, and I'll release you to them. Aren't Brother and Daddy worth a month to you?"

"And if I say no?" Sam said, staring past it, to where it had shown him Dad and Dean. Of course they were worth it. And it knew that. Fucking thing knew it had him and he tried, tried not to be afraid, as if trying would work. "What then?"

"Then I'll make you a gift of your father and brother instead of an exchange. But I'll give them to you a little bit at a time. A finger here, an ear there." The teeth gleamed even brighter and it cupped Sam's cheek. "That could be fun too," it whispered. Its voice was so soft, like a filthy caress.

Sam couldn't breathe. Dad and Dean, a little bit at a time. The visual was too vivid, too easy to bring up in his imagination. It was even worse when he closed his eyes. "You can't do anything to… to use me against them," Sam mumbled, eyes downcast.

"Agreed. One month. No harm to your body. Nothing to harm your father or brother through you. I will make it so that they never even realize you're gone. Yes, that last part is completely necessary," It said, when Sam opened his mouth to protest. It covered his mouth with its fingers. They felt like ice, stealing the heat from Sam's skin.

"Now, let's seal it," It said. Sam just stared, and the hand that had been petting his cheek slid over his mouth, parting his lips. He wanted to fight and didn't, spending every bit of energy he had not to bite down. "With a kiss, of course," it whispered, and leaned in and took one. Rough and full enough to make Sam's knees locked to keep him standing.

"Now watch me keep my end of the deal," it instructed and Sam looked out the window where it pointed. He clutched the windowsill and watched as Dean and his father stumbled out of a door that hadn't been there before. Watched them walk out onto the street, both pale and shaky, but looking pretty much okay, going right for where the Impala was parked.

He opened his mouth to scream for them, to get them to come back, but there was a hand clamped tightly over it, sealing the screams inside. "Be good, or you'll have to be punished," it whispered, licking a long line of spit from ear to neck. "But then, you will be anyway."

Sam tried not to breathe, tried not to think, tried not to anything. He could see so clearly, how close they were. His brother and father right in front of him, climbing into the Impala. The growling sound of the engine starting. Dean's face staring out the passenger window, looking back at the house like he might actually see Sam there, needing him. But Dean didn't, and Sam watched them drive away.

One month, he told himself. It was just a month and they'd be fine and they'd help him hunt this thing down. It was already dead, it just didn't know it yet. Sam promised himself that.

"Your turn," it said and pushed him back down onto the floor and kicked his legs apart.

The first time hurt and it only hurt, nothing but pain and fear in it. Later, when it showed him the rest, Sam learned how to be grateful for that mercy.

\

Sam knelt on the floor, knees bruised from the hardwood and sending echoes of creaking pain that had gotten so constant he'd learned to ignore them. It was dark. It could have been a week, a month, a year, and he wouldn't know, not in here. Most of the time lately he thought it had lied, that it had lied to him, that the month must have been over forever ago, and it had kept him.

He wanted to scream, but screaming was only allowed with permission. He didn't have permission. There was only the voice, the constant, bright sounds of laughter and hands on his body.

Today it was behind him, long finger stroking his hair, scratching behind his ears like he was a puppy. It was a gentle touch, warm and Sam leaned into it, shoving down the sick self-loathing for doing it.

"It's a shame," it said, and Sam's ears almost twitched like he really was its puppy. "A month. It hasn't really been long enough." Sam bit his lip, trying not to hope. It liked to tease. It pushed him gently against the shoulder and he slid down onto his hands and knees.

"Still, a deal's a deal. And, you have learned so much, just as I promised. Haven't you?" Sam just stared, blinking at it. It smacked him lightly over the cheek, leaving a bright red handprint that faded without a mark. "Well?"

"Yes sir," Sam whispered.

"Good. Good. Then it's time for you to go home." Sam swallowed hard, just watching its smiling face over his shoulder. It straddled his thighs, pushing his knees apart further. He was going to go home, he told himself. When he did, it would die, that simple. No way would Dean let it live. No way. "So angry, still. That's rare. Now, just one last thing," it murmured. "Just to keep things interesting."

Sam wanted to ask, but he knew better. He kept his eyes on it. He watched its hands as they slid up and down his thighs and stroked his cock into hardness. "Well. Three things," it said. "Three gifts, from me to you."

It traced one finger over the inside of Sam's left thigh, stroking muscle, over and over, as if it were closing a knot. It felt like nothing at first, just skin on skin. Then came the warm tingle that Sam had come to recognize as its magic. Warmth intensified to itching, and suddenly, before he quite realized what was happening, it was pain, like needles driven through his skin, thousands, buzzing into him.

Sam fought the screams until they forced their way out, hoarse and horrible, like someone else was the one screaming. When his vision was edged with black the pain started to recede. It tilted his head back, posing him like a doll. Showing him the knot, drawn onto his left thigh. Like someone had tied red string right into his skin. He shuddered.

"This first gift is submission," it whispered. It traced a thumb over Sam's cheek, sopping up his tears. "I could have made it so that you could only feel pain every time you were touched. Could have made it so that pain was your only release. I've done that before."

It kissed him gently on the earlobe and the erection that had wilted came back to life fast enough to force a sob out of Sam. "More fun this way. You'll be able to go without the things I've taught you for a little while, but not easily. You won't have rest, won't feel safe, won't ever feel at ease unless someone holds you down and bends your will to theirs." It laughed wildly. "No freedom or peace without it, my Sam. I know you'll enjoy that."

It pushed him back down. Dimly, like it was all happening to someone else, he could hear himself. He was sobbing thickly, like a hysterical child while it traced its hand over his other thigh. If he could have found his voice or just the air to scream, he'd have begged. It didn't help that he knew what was coming this time; the heat still became an itch that left him screaming, arching his spine against it. Only this time his cock still throbbed against his belly, sick desire shooting right through the worst pain.

When it stopped there was another red knot drawn into his right thigh. "I did say nothing permanent. So, the second gift is love and truth. Or love of the truth. I bet you didn't know I could give those kinds of gifts too," it murmured into his skin, breathing cool air against his twitching cock. "When another creature knows and understands what happened here, what you are, and loves you despite that-- carnally, as it were, and otherwise, of course-- and you love them in return, then all my gifts are, shall we say, revoked."

It slid its cold mouth over his balls, licking almost playfully in a way that made Sam quiver. Even through his sobs, he felt something like hope. That was something he could work with. Find someone. Dean would help him even if no one else would. Dean. Or find someone else who would if he was too disgusted to help himself.

A hard smack across his ass drew him out of his thoughts. "One last gift. This one, I think will be invisible to everyone but you. Wouldn't want things to be too easy, would we?"

This time its hand covered his mouth, keeping the screams pent up inside. Its whole body covered his, like it was feeding on the way he flailed, the way he couldn't get loose. It only let him collapse to the floor like a broken puppet when it was done. His cock throbbed against the wood and he whimpered, hands clenching helplessly at nothing.

"Your last gift is silence. You will not speak of what happened here, nor will you offer any hint or any assistance to any person or creature that seeks to know." It knelt beside him and kissed him lightly on the back of his neck and its hand slid under his hips to grasp his cock easily.

"One more time and I'll take you home. They'll never even know you were gone." Sam's body responded to its every touch while he sobbed hopelessly into the hard, pitiless floor like the child he wasn't anymore.

Home soon, home soon, Sam told himself. Everything else could be fixed later. He tried to make it the only thing that mattered.

/

Sam didn't quite believe that his family wouldn't notice he'd ever been gone, no matter what it had said. Especially not Dean. He kept right on doubting until, followed by its laughter, he stepped outside the door of its house and through the door of a motel room in an entirely different motel in an entirely different state than they'd been in last.

And there was Dean on the bed, just like that, as if he had no idea Sam had been thinking about him. Dean looked up from the gun he was cleaning and gave Sam his normal, careless smile, like nothing was wrong. "Yo, Sammy, you forgot that coffee after all, huh?" he called. "Dad's gonna be pissed."

Sam just stared at him for a long, blank moment. He wanted to crawl into Dean's lap like he was six. He wanted to start screaming. And he couldn't, the words and screams all caught somewhere between brain and tongue. Dean stared back at him, his smile fading slowly into confusion. "You okay?" he asked, tone going from teasing to something like gentle.

Sam opened his mouth to say he didn't know what, but what came out was, "Yeah. Fine. Lemme just go get that coffee before Dad does get back." And he turned and walked out the door, just like that.

He walked right down to the convenience store across the street, dry eyed and stone faced. His hands were shaking and they didn't stop all the way there. When he got there, he found that he didn't actually have any money for the coffee just after the clerk rang him up, which felt like the perfect end to everything somehow.

"Sorry," he muttered, staring at the counter, so he didn't see the clerk grin.

"Tell you what, I'll give it to you for a blow job," the clerk said, with a thick casual contempt, like he assumed Sam's ripped jeans and ragged shirt meant he was for sale. Normally, Sam would just roll his eyes and cuss him out. Deck him if he was in a bad mood. This kind of thing happened more to Dean than him anyway.

"Fine," he said instead with an equal level of weary disgust. He was so damned tired. "Whatever." And he knew right then, knew right to his marrow that it really was never going to be okay. Things were unfixable enough that he was following this guy out to the dirty back alley. At least he already knew nothing could be as bad as what already had happened.

He came back to the motel with the coffee twenty minutes later and bitched right back at Dad when Dad started in on him about how he'd taken too long and it was cold now. He was the one who was cold, cold all the way through.

Dad didn't seem to notice, but later that night, when Dad was in his own room asleep, Dean climbed over into Sam's bed like he hadn't since he was thirteen and Sam was nine. He didn't say anything, didn't touch Sam at all, just sat there and breathed, calm and steady. Sam let his own breathing fall into the same rhythm until he could finally fall asleep.

\

The first time Dean caught him on his knees for some guy wasn't a full month later. Dean grabbed the guy and decked him full out while Sam watched, head spinning, listening to the crack of Dean's fists on someone else's flesh. All Sam could feel was sick, soul churning shame fighting through the buzzing need of the unfinished sex. Need that didn’t recede upon Dean’s arrival; just the opposite.

He stumbled off to be sick in the nearby dumpster, throwing up come and a greasy diner dinner. Dean just stared at him, at the bloodied, twitching guy he'd been blowing and shook his head.

When Dean took him back to the motel and started asking questions, and saying things like, "Sammy, Jesus, talk to me," all Sam could do was stare silently at his feet until his brother punched the wall and walked out, leaving him there.

Sam stared at the dirty carpet and Dean's retreating back, hands shaking like a junkie in need. Wanting to speak up with a desperation that rocked him was almost the worst thing he could think of. Sam was just glad Dean didn't admit to being grossed out or throw it in his face, or so he told himself. Leaving him alone like this wasn't really that bad, when Dean probably thought it was exactly what he wanted.  


 

  
 **Tags:** [outside by the blue blue moon](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/outside%20by%20the%20blue%20blue%20moon), [supernatural](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/supernatural)  



	2. Side Story

Dean knew a lot about his little brother, maybe more than he should, but living in one motel room with the kid for most of their lives would do that. Changed his diapers, walked him to school on his first day of kindergarten, heard all about his first crush and the way the girl had tasted like cherry chapstick when she kissed.

So, he should have known what the hell it was that had made Sam go nuts the summer before he started high school. And… going nuts, that was exactly what it looked like to Dean. Going nuts was how Sam went from being Sammy, crazy stubborn and laughing Sam who fought with dad and was nice to dogs, and had a nasty tendency to superglue Dean's boots to things and stick bugs on the toilet tank and snicker about it to… this.

To this sullen kid with the cast down eyes and the constantly clenched fists. Who climbed out the window in the middle of the night, but only after he finished all his homework, because he was still Sam. Dean's kid brother, who now came home at stupid hours and walked like he was bruised everywhere. Sam, who was suddenly this kid who woke up screaming on the nights he stayed in, and Dean didn't even know what to do with that, since you couldn't really climb into your kid brother's bed and hug them when they were near sixteen. Sam would probably just sock him one if he tried, and Dean couldn't blame him.

It would be bad enough if Dean didn't know what Sam was doing when he went out, but he wasn't that lucky. Not since one sticky July night in an alley under the sulfur colored streetlights. It was the smell of that night that haunted Dean, stinking up his dreams. Trash and piss and sex. And Sam on his knees, jeans unzipped and hands on his own cock while some… some guy had his dick…

Dean wanted to kill that guy. Wanted to splatter his guts around and feed them to ghouls. Wanted to grab Sam by the collar of his shirt and shake him until some kind of explanation came out. If Sam wanted to do guys, even blow them in alleys Dean didn't care, but this-

It was the look on Sam's face, clenched up and closed off, like someone was hurting him and he was just trying to get through it. Not a sex look and the choked sounds he made were the same as in his nightmares not sex sounds. Dean had listened through enough of Sam's wet dreams to know the difference.

Dean should have taken that as his cue to lock Sam up somewhere until he just spit out the problem so Dean could fix it. Sam, who'd told him every stupid thing, even when Dean really, really didn't care about the circumference of Mars or the mating habits of flukeworms, wouldn't say a single freaking word about this.

The most Dean got was a tight faced apology, with Sam not even looking him in the eye. "Sorry," he'd whispered. "Sorry, sorry."

Dean had bitten back the frustration and caught Sam by the back of the neck, forcing his little brother to meet his eyes. He saw nothing there but the blank expression of a trapped animal. "Sam," he'd muttered. "Don't be sorry. It's okay. Jesus, just talk to me."

The blankness didn't shift. It was like all Sam was putting out was static, like a radio stuck on a dead frequency. Knob broken, spitting out nothing.

"Look, do I have to talk about this with dad?" Dean had finally said, because he really, really didn't know what else to say.

That was when Sam had made this sound. The awful, cracked sound, like he was still choking on a mouthful of dick. And before Dean could take it back, Sam was on his knees in the scratchy motel floor, clutching Dean's boot and begging. Begging, like someone had taught him how, because the little brother Dean remembered hadn't known.

"Please," he'd mumbled. "Dean, don't. I- he won't understand. Don't, don't." It was like, Dean didn't even know what, like Sam thought this was the end of the world. It felt like that to Dean, having Sam on his knees, pleading with him.

"Jesus, Sammy, just tell me what's wrong," Dean had whispered. He wanted to pull those clutching hands off, pull Sam up and say something to fix this. Too bad he sucked at words. Too bad he couldn't do this.

He ended up stumbling to his feet, wincing at the way Sam was there on the floor. He just needed to get away, to breathe.

When he got back Sam was sitting on his bed, looking pink and well scrubbed and bent over his homework with a look of determination that made Dean hurt. He couldn't say anything, nothing that seemed to break through Sam's wall of stubborn without being something that just plain broke Sam. Instead he shut up about it and hustled some extra poker and sprang for pizza, as if that was going to help.

And then there was now.

Terry Hardley wasn't someone Dean wanted to know, so he didn't know much. Big kid, meaty like a football player. He hung around the pool hall, always got in with no trouble, even though he was still in high school and probably under aged.

Terry's dad was the town sheriff, which probably explained plenty about that. About that and the persistent nasty rumors about Terry taking some of the local girls out and them stumbling home nights half-naked, carrying their torn up clothes.

That right there made Dean itch to sock the guy, but they needed to be here while Dad tracked down a lead and Dean was in no way gonna fuck it up by making trouble with the sheriff's kid. That was why he settled for winning a few hundred over the pool table and laughing a little too loudly at the sheer cussed pissed off expression on Terry's face, like no one had ever handed him his ass before.

"I should mess up your pretty face for that, Winchester," Terry had hissed, nasty beer breath stinking up Dean's breathing space.

Dean just shrugged with a studied mildness, which the roll of twenties in his pocket helped him achieve. "Yeah, good luck with that, Hardley," he'd said and put every once of plastic brightness he had into it.

He'd sort of hoped Terry would try something, because beating the fuck out of him really would have brightened Dean's day, but the kid had just sneered. "Watch out. Something important to you might get fucked up. Then we'll see who has good luck."

Oh, and that was lame. Dean couldn't help the belly laugh, which had just made Terry storm off. Kid was obviously more into fucking with girls than kids his own size. Still, Dean had gone out of his way to be careful when parking the Impala for the next few days, because Terry was just the sort of petty asshole to key his baby or something.

Turned out Dean had been stupid about it. Had been watching out for the wrong important thing.

He didn't even know it until tonight, until right now. Coming home from a really good time with this girl Cindy who had red hair all the way down and a laugh that sparkled. All strung out and pleased with himself, until he'd heard the sounds coming through the thin walls of the room next door.

"It's enough," and that was Sam, sounding more irritated than anything else, so Dean wasn't worried yet. "You're too loud. My brother could get home any minute. We need to go somewhere else."

"Fucking whore, why do you care? Think he doesn't know what you are?" the voice was low and distorted by sex, bad enough that Dean didn't recognize it at first.

The words by themselves were enough to make him growl, make him decide that he was going to watch by the window for this fucker to leave and beat the shit out of him. He wanted to do that right the fuck now, but he couldn't- could not deal with looking Sam in the face like that again, knew that Sam didn't especially want his intervention in- whatever. Sam had made that clear.

"Whatever," Sam hissed, "Just make it quick," and then a string of something else, that was muffled by the walls. Dean's hands clenched into fists.

A thick litany of abuse poured out through the wall, just filth and sheer sick cruelty and suddenly Dean didn't give a shit how Sam was going to look at him, he really didn't. He was just on his feet and already had the lockpicks out on the room next door by the time he heard Sam scream. High pitched and shrill, like the first time Sam had broken his arm falling off a roof during a hunt. Pure, mindless agony.

Dean dropped the picks and just used boots and elbow to smash the door open, his brain not even trying to supply him with images of what could be happening. He didn't want to know, he just wanted it to stop already.

Nothing he could have come up with was as bad as Sam laying spreadeagled on a bed, tied so tightly his hands and feet were white. Terry fucking Hardley's fist riding up inside him, deep enough that Dean couldn't even see it.

He lost a few minutes there. Lost them because the next thing he knew he had Terry hanging off his own fist like a puppet while he used the other one to break his face into a bloody pulp. Somewhere off in the distance he could hear Sam, but all that meant to him was a reassurance Sam was close and capable of yelling at him, which was a good sign as far as Dean was concerned.

He didn't stop until Terry was on the ground, twitching limply. He didn't want to look at his brother then. He tried not to, which made undoing Sam's bonds tricky, but he saw flashes of it anyway.

How bruised and abraded Sam's wrists and ankles were, like he'd fought the ties. The obscene gaping between his legs, unreal, like something out of a nastier type of gangbang porno than Dean liked to watch. The way Sam was talking, but Dean didn't hear a word of it, nothing that made sense. He did hear the small whimpers of pain as the circulation returned to tied off limbs and… whatever else and every one made him wince.

Sam's hands clung to Dean's back when Dean lifted him off the bed and carried him into the other room, their room. Dean didn't know if Sam objected to being carried or not, but he didn't protest physically and Dean honestly couldn't hear him if he was talking. He was too hyped on adrenaline to even feel his weight.

Then it was back to Terry, who was still twitching and whimpering. "Tell anyone about this and you'll wish you were dead," Dean hissed. He wasn't sure why he didn't actually make him dead, what stopped him. Not sanity.

Instead he half dragged and half carried him outside, all around the parking lot until he recognized the car he thought was Terry's. He slung him over the hood and turned right back around.

In the room, the bathroom door was firmly shut and Dean could hear the shower running. He shoved it open and winced when he saw Sam flinch through a cloud of steam.

"What the hell," Dean began. His voice was pitched low, too choked to scream. "What the hell is wrong with you, Sam? What the fuck?"

The steam cleared enough to give him a good look at Sam's eyes. Animal trapped, all color except for a tiny dot of pupil, just like he looked every time Dean tried to say something.

"Sorry," Sam said softly, drawing back into himself. Shoulders hunched and eyes wide, as if he thought maybe Dean was going to hit him next. Maybe Sam would just get off on that and stop fucking around like this, Dean thought sourly, before a rush of self-disgust and anguish shut that thought right off.

"This is not okay," Dean hissed. "This is not okay. You tell me what's wrong. Right the fuck now, Sam. Now."

"It's just. Just sex," Sam mumbled. His gaze dropped and he hunched down even further, Dean could see the little tremors of pain when he moved no matter how hard Sam tried to suppress them. "You didn't have to do that. Just leave me alone."

"I didn't have to- wait." Wait. The thought hit Dean in a rush. A horrible, twisted thought, but it would explain so fucking much. He felt stupid, awful, for not having thought of that before. Sam would never do this. This wasn't Sam.

"You're not my brother," he said suddenly, and he almost smiled when he realized that. "You. There's no way. No fucking way."

Sam, or the thing pretending to be Sam, stumbled in the slippery tub and almost fell, barely catching himself on the towel rack. "What?" he asked. "D-Dean?"

"Christo," Dean hissed and waited, but Sam just stared at him with this blank horror, like this was worse than Terry's fists, worse than his own nightmares, that made Dean's stomach churn. Not Sam, Dean reminded himself. "Okay, so maybe you're not a demon. What are you?"

"I-I'm Sam," Sam whispered. His arms wrapped around his chest, too skinny, those arms and his mouth moved even when the words stopped. "Dean, I'm not- I'm just Sam."

"I'll figure it out," Dean told the thing and his mouth curved into an almost smile. "You're not my Sam, but I'll figure it out and when I do you're gonna regret this."

Sam just shook his head and started mumbling something and when Dean got closer he realized it was the lord's prayer, in Sam's soft, shaky voice and immaculate grammatical Latin. "There," he said when it was done. "See? Not possessed."

Dean bit his lip. No. There was no way. He thought about his laughing, basically happy little brother and then this. "You're a liar," he said and took a quick step up to Sam. "Admit it. My brother would never, never do this shit."

"I'm sorry," Sam whispered. He was shaking and when Dean thrust his hand through the water to shut it off he realized it had gone cold. Sam winced from the hand like he thought Dean was going to hit him with it. "I'm sorry I did that. But I'm me, Dean. Ask me whatever."

"Having Sam's memories doesn't prove anything," Dean said firmly. Plenty of creatures could do that, not just demons. He grabbed one of Sam's skinny, trembling arms and tugged him out of the shower, not hard, because this might actually be his Sam's body, he wasn't sure, but harder than he normally would knowing his little brother was hurt.

He blinked and shook his head when he saw Sam's cock shift and start to fill at the contact. "Freak," he muttered. Because Sam, his Sam, wouldn't- that. No way. Maybe Dean had been sick enough to think about it, sort of, but not like this and Sam would never.

Sam flinched and water dripped down his cheeks and off his chin. Probably from the shower. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, not doing a thing to keep Dean from dragging him, even if he winced with every step like he was in agony just walking. And that had been Terry's fist and oh, Jesus. "I'm so, so sorry, I won't, I can't, I'm sorry, Dean. Please."

"Shut up," Dean hissed. He dragged his unresisting brother over to the closet. There were pillows up on the top shelf and Dean grabbed those, tossing them on the floor, before he shoved Sam in and shut the door behind him.

He slid down on the floor himself, back to the door, hands over his face. He could hear the faint, muffled sounds from the other side start up a few seconds after, like a child much younger than Sam was sobbing into a pillow. Sam crying. It took everything he had to not just push the door open and do something. Just do something.

But this wasn't Sam, or if it was, there was something else, some creature using him. There had to be, nothing else made any sense.

"Don't worry," Dean found himself saying out loud, as it really were his brother in there, crying. "Don't worry. I'm going to figure out what this is. And I'll exorcise it or get rid of it. Or whatever I have to. Just. I'll fix this."

He stumbled up to his feet and pushed the heavy desk in front of the closet, blocking off the door, trapping Sam and whatever was in him inside. It was the best thing he could think of, at least keeping it here would stop it from hurting Sam's body anymore.

His dad was going to be home in two days, so that gave Dean some time to solve this. Dean took a slow, shaky breath and wondered where the fuck he was supposed to start.

Dad's journal was the obvious place, but dad was the one who had it and there was no way he was bringing this to Dad if he didn't have to. Dean's brain shied away from the whys and it didn't matter. He was going to help Sam.

After a few minutes of balancing on his heels, trying to think, trying to ignore Sam's hiccuping sobs and protests that he was Sam, just Sam, he was goddamnit, Dean walked out of the room to find the payphone.

Sometime in the interval Terry and his car had disappeared, which was good, because Dean might have actually killed him if he saw him. Instead he dropped a few quarters into the phone and dialed a number, holding his breath as it rang.

"Bobby," he mumbled into the receiver. "Bobby, man, it's Dean. I need your help. I really need your help."

Bobby's voice was slow and soothing on the other end and at least some of the tension went out of Dean's spine as they went through the list of creatures that could possess someone or take their form and how to get rid of them. Dean was just relieved he got through it without ever saying Sam's name.

It took nearly the full two days to get through the list, two days of keeping Sam in the closet, only letting him out to push him into the bathroom or shove food and pain pills at him. Somewhere in the back of his head Dean wondered if a creature wouldn't just try to use those times to escape or something, but he couldn't think about it.

Sam didn't say anything after the first hour of pleading, reciting things only he could know, banging on the wall, anything. Dean was just grateful for once that the clientele of this cheapass establishment kept their mouths really shut.

In a way, the quiet was worse. Sam just watching him out of dull blank eyes when he was out. Blinking holy water off his lashes when Dean poured it on him, breathing in sage and herbs when Dean tried to smudge him with those and saying nothing. Like a living doll.

Worse when he was in the closet and Dean had to keep his ear against it all the damned time just to make sure Sam was still breathing.

The last ritual involved waving around a flaming brand that Sam kept wincing away from like he thought Dean might apply it to skin. Dean kept waiting for Sam to finally cuss him out or something, but he didn't fight or object otherwise. Which was… Sam would fight. Sam had always fought, fought bullies at school, fought with Dad at home over everything, fought like crazy. Never like this passive, quiet thing that just stared at Dean and looked hopeless. Trapped.

This had to work, Dean told himself. This one just had to work.

The ritual was supposed to show the true face of whoever or whatever you used it on, so Dean knew he was going to either see the thing possessing Sam or whatever had taken over. And once he knew what this was he could fix it. He took a deep breath and doused the brand in a bowl of water. Held it up in front of Sam's face and watched the water silver over, until it shone like a mirror.

Sam bit his lip and stared down into it and so did Dean. Looking into that surface he saw… Sam's face. Just Sam, not the quiet, half broken version Dean had in front of him.

Sam's mouth looked a little red and smudged like there was something covering it and his eyes looked bruised, exhausted. Worn almost to nothing, but there was more than a spark there, of anger, frustration in his face. Of Sam, being pissed the fuck off because Dean was an idiot.

"Shit," Dean hissed. He put the bowl down and looked back up at Sam who was just staring back. And he saw it now, that anger, buried deep, but real. Sam. "Shit. You… you're you."

"Duh," Sam muttered. His voice sounded rough, disused, like he hadn't spoken in two days. Which he hadn't. "I told you that how many times?"

Dean just looked at Sam, kneeling there and felt the first, clenching waves of guilt. It was Sam, just Sam. He'd locked his brother in a closet. Jesus fuck. No wonder Sam was pissed. "Oh, god. Sam. I-"

"Yeah, forget about it," Sam said softly, his gaze dropping again. Dean could almost see the anger get locked away. "You thought you were helping."

"That Terry kid-" Dean began and then shook his head. "What the hell, Sam?"

"I don't know what you want me to say," Sam said. He gave this painful little half shrug and a tiny sarcastic half smile. "Obviously you just aren't listening to excuses on that one."

Dean shook his head again, harder. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "But. Don't do that shit, Sam. Don't."

"Or you'll try to exorcise me again?" Sam rolled his eyes, but he looked more tired than anything else. "Look, I don't know- I mean, I'll be more careful next time."

Dean wasn't sure if that meant more careful about who he did shit with or just more careful about being caught. He wanted to press, but somehow he thought he'd just sacrificed the right. "I won't do that again, either," he said softly. "I really am sorry, Sam. I freaked."

"Yeah, I noticed." Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Look. Just- can we just not? Let's just not."

Dean nodded slowly and didn't say anything when Sam stumbled to his feet. He didn't say anything again the next night, once Dad was home and Sam climbed out the window and came back with that usual tight-eyed expression.

Kept his stupid mouth shut when the next week Sam started keeping an SAT prep book in his backpack.  



	3. Chapter 3

April 2002

The first time Sam Winchester saw Jess Moore, it was at the fetish costume party of someone whose name he kept forgetting. She was just a blonde in an angel costume, complete with fluttery white wings and a halo hanging over her pale hair. He was cold. Of course he was cold, he was naked and right under the air conditioner, the damned thing was practically blowing up his ass.

She was beautiful, even he could see that, and he'd stopped looking at people's bodies as more than pieces of meat years ago. Maybe more than her face was beautiful.

He raised his head up from the table he was bent over and there she was, watching. She grinned and raised an eyebrow and he'd have said something back, except his mouth was full of a thick silky gag and his hands were tied rough and tight behind his back. Nothing he couldn't break out of if he tried, but he didn't try.

Sam had learned a long time ago to make sure trying was worth the effort.

Then there was a big hand on his dick, and another on his balls, too damned hard and he almost screamed at the sensation. It cut off his brain, turned everything off but the rawness of skin and hair and the burn of dick. Calmed down the voices and the nerves and the misery, for however short a time.

After that, he stopped seeing much of anything at all and just went with feeling things. Eyes closed, helpless everywhere, hands on him, in him. Somebody's dick, hard and sharp enough to make him gasp. To feel this and nothing but this.

That could have been the way Sam's night went, right there. One more temporary escape into flesh and mindlessness. It probably should have been. Except later, and he didn't know how much, when he was too tired and near the breaking point, there was a girl's cool voice, solid and steady and coming from somewhere near his head.

It made him want to see her face, but all he could feel were thick waves of exhaustion and sore muscles. Opening his eyes was more work than he was up for.

He could still hear her. "That's enough," she was saying. "Can't you tell when someone's worn out?"

"…didn't safeword." A guy's voice, unfamiliar except that it probably belonged to a dick that had been up his ass, but less sharp then the girl's, and Sam could hear the wavering hint of worry in it. It made him want to laugh. "We didn't do anything wrong."

"Fuck you, Tommy," she said. The anger in her tone would have made Sam smile except he was too tired to move even that much. He did open his eyes for her, finally. Blinked up at her, bleary eyed, feeling the wetness on his lashes. Her gaze was on him and she gave him a little nod, but he wasn't sure what she was trying to convey. "You gagged him, dumbass."

"Like he's going to complain, Jess," Tommy or whoever muttered, and now the angel had a name. Jess. Sam watched her stamp one high-heeled foot and smiled around his gag.

Her hands were very cool, almost icy on his red cheeks, red ass, burning wrists. Sam winced when the knots on his wrists were pulled loose, sending the circulation crashing back through. Jess' hands were there too, rubbing, brisk but gentle, whispering something in his ear he couldn't make out over the rush of returning blood. Just the soothing tone and tenor of her voice, stroking him.

"I'm taking you home," she finally said, a little louder. "Nod if that's okay." And it was only then that he realized she hadn't taken the gag out. He could do it himself now, with his hands free and more or less working, even if they were caught in hers. He didn't, though, just looked up at her from under his eyelashes and nodded.

Her eyes were blue and big and she grinned and kissed him on a reddened cheek, like he was a little kid. Sam felt relaxed, boneless and free, the way he only could after sex and so he let his head loll down onto her shoulder, feeling the warmth of her skin. She smelled good, like sex, beer and vanilla perfume.

"You'll be okay, sweetie," she whispered, soft breath on the lobe of his ear, enough to make him shiver. "You did great. Amazing. But, you have to be a little more careful than this."

Sam just nodded again, not bothering to explain he could have stopped it if he'd felt like it. Not able to explain in a way that really could have helped her understand, not that he would have tried with a stranger. But that was the beautiful physicality of the gag, it cut off all the explanations, even impossible ones. He didn't need to worry.

Instead he put his hands in hers and let her tug him stumbling to his feet, the sheer weight of his body almost knocking them both over. She found his discarded clothes in a crumbled pile under the table and tugged them onto him with practiced ease.

After all that, it seemed only fair to follow her to her place and let her push him down onto her bed. He curled up by the foot of the bed, still gagged, and watched her hang her angel wings away in the closet. She came to bed herself once she was finished, pale and lithe, wearing nothing but a guy's oversized white T-shirt that let her nipples poke through. He knew he was beyond fucked out when he didn't even twitch.

Sam waited for her to do something, reach for his mouth or between his legs, but she didn't. Instead she just pulled his head into her lap and stroked his hair, slow and strange and gentle, until he was completely asleep.

In the morning he woke up before her, spat the gag out, and found the coffeepot. His body was sore as fuck, especially (and most literally) between his legs, but he felt loose and relaxed everywhere. Warm. Just as long as he didn't move too fast, which he had no plans to do, he was okay.

The coffee was already brewed and piping hot when she came in, wearing that same oversized T-shirt, loose enough to expose one suntanned shoulder. Pretty enough to lick. Sam felt good enough to grin at her.

He had no idea what was happening here, what she wanted, but figured it couldn't be that bad. "Morning," he said brightly. She had a sour, anti-morning expression that reminded Sam a little of his brother, which was too funny. "You're Jess, right?"

She nodded and took the mug he pushed into her hands, lifting it up in a two handed grip and taking a long swallow before she said anything. "Yeah. You look better today. Also, you know my name."

He laughed, showing teeth and she actually smiled back at him. "I have a good memory for names," he said. And then held out a hand, covering hers in his. It was weird how small and thin her fingers were this morning when the night before they'd been everywhere on his skin. "I'm Sam."

"Winchester, I know; you're in my logic and theory class. Thanks for the coffee." Her fingers curled around his palm and that sent a lazy rush of heat through him, reminding him just how steady she had been.

He tilted his chin, exposing his bare throat and she put the cup in her free hand down on the counter with a startling clatter. There she was, kissing him on the juncture of neck and throat, teeth in the sensitive, vulnerable hollow. "So what was that all about last night?" she whispered into his skin with a gentle voice at odds with the rest of her.

Sam shrugged. "Just getting off," he muttered, not meeting her eyes. And then he gasped, heat tilting back when she pressed hard over an old bruise.

When he looked up again she was watching at him, eyes echoing blue, the color of her shirt. Pretty eyes and a careful, thoughtful gaze. "You didn't look like you even liked it, why-" she started and then stopped when his lips pursed and tightened. She smiled and shook her head. "You're going to say it's none of my business."

Sam smiled back, throat still curved, offering. "Maybe," he drawled. What he wanted to say was that she was pretty. He wanted to say he liked the feel of her hands in a way he hadn't really known he could like hands on him. He wanted to say a lot of things, but he settled for smiling.

"You wanna play with me, Sam?" she whispered. "It'll maybe be my business then."

"Yeah, could be," he said, eyes sliding closed. He didn't wince when she grabbed him by a thick handful of hair, tugging his head back even further, enough to hurt. "Yes, ma'am," he hissed.

"Good." She let him go and he relaxed a little. Rested his hip against the counter, looking down at her even from a slouch. Felt her gaze all over him, like he was being surveyed. He kept his eyes on her face until she smiled, slow and sweet and pretty.

"That scene last night was stupid. You won't do anything that stupid again," Jess said, steady and stone certain as she looked him right in the eye.

Sam raised an eyebrow. His legs slid apart, smooth and easy as well greased clockwork when she stepped between them. Spreading for her. "No? You sound sure of yourself."

She laughed. Her pretty pink tongue slid out from between her equally pretty lips. She licked them. "Oh, Sam, Sam, you have no idea. Don't worry, you'll get what you need."

Sam recognized it as a promise, and he nodded slowly, already anticipating what came next as one of her knees pressed right up under his balls.

/

After three days, when they'd fucked enough that Sam lost count of how many times since the first one, Jess asked him out to a movie at the Student Union while Sam was still tied to her bed. His whole body felt awake, electric in a way he couldn't remember it being before. Sam sort of blinked at her from under his lashes.

"You want to go out on a date?" he said blankly. He thought he could be excused for feeling muzzy, it felt like he might have come and brains dripping out of his ears. "With me?"

Jess laughed and kissed his cheek. "No, with the other guy I have tied to my bed. Of course with you, Sam. Say yes."

Sam's eyes narrowed and his mouth curved. "Is that an order, ma'am?" he murmured, slow and thick with something like insolence.

Jess just smacked him lightly on the back of the head and kept laughing. "No. It's a sincere request. This can't be the first time someone's asked you out on a date, Sam."

And Sam opened his mouth to say of course it wasn't, but nothing came out and he ended up just staring at her. He was starting to think that happened too damned much. He bit his lip and shook his head, because it wasn't, not exactly, but-

Jess' smile faded too quickly and her eyes were suspiciously bright when she watched him. He squirmed under hands that were too gentle, and a mouth that just barely grazed skin when she brushed a kiss over his forehead.

"I had a weird childhood, not a lot of time for dating," Sam mumbled. His shrug tugged on the sore muscle of his shoulders, but he didn't wince.

"I wish I could kill whoever hurt you," Jess whispered into the hollow of his neck, so soft Sam wasn't even sure she'd meant to say that out loud.

Sam shook his head. He didn't want to have this conversation, couldn't really have the conversation that Jess probably wanted even if he'd been dying to do it. It felt stupid and helpless in the way the restraints on his wrists didn't.

"What movie did you want to go to?" he asked instead and was rewarded with Jess' smile, sweet and wide and unlike anything he could put it into words.

She kissed him on the mouth and he opened up for it without being forced, letting himself relax all the way for the first time in years.

\

On the way back to Jess' place after their first date, squirming under her steady gaze, Sam wondered if he was ever under a curse or if it was his own stupidity that constantly fucked him over.

He'd never even expected to meet a girl like Jess. Sam had never expected to meet a girl anything could really happen with period, full stop. Definitely not one like this, willing to put up with all his stupid shit. Of course his sane and totally normal response to all of it, to someone who actually liked him, was to get up half way through a movie, tugging Jess' hand out of his, feeling weird and itchy and no idea where this was going.

It turned out that it was going straight to the men's room, to give the popcorn guy a hard and fast blowjob. Dirty as hell, the filthy bathroom tile bruising his knees and the cock down his throat going deep enough to make him gag on every other stroke.

"Does your girlfriend know you're a faggot?" the guy asked Sam, soft and thick with contempt when he zipped up his jeans. Sam just ignored him.

Of course the asshole had to repeat the question, louder, when they got out of the room and Jess was standing right there, by the door with a thoughtful look on her face.

"At least I know you're a dickhead," was all Jess said to the guy, like she didn't even care. Which led to her grabbing Sam by the arm and tugging him right out the door.

He didn't know why he was following her, didn't quite see the point. They were… dating, apparently, and Sam might not have done much of that, but he knew it didn't involve random blowjobs for strangers. That kind of thing led directly to no longer dating.

It didn’t, or shouldn't lead, right back to Jess' apartment. To Jess pushing him in the direction of a big overstuffed chair and climbing on top, straddling his lap.

"Tell me straight up," she said, still cool and steady. "Do you like me?"

Sam felt his face burn. He hadn't even known he could get embarrassed anymore, not really. Not since he was fifteen and Dean caught him at it the first time and he'd felt so stupid and shamed. This didn't come close, but still. He liked her and she was probably, rightfully, never going to speak to him again. "Yeah. I do," he tried. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not asking you to be sorry, Sam." Jess cupped his cheek with a supple, gentle hand. "Fidelity isn't a requirement."

He gave a half shrug. "You're acting pretty pissed for it not to have been a requirement," he muttered.

"Sam. Man. It's not that. It's-- I've done the domme thing before, you know, played around. I've been all over the clubs down in San Fran. Parties too," she said, which was interesting, but not, to his mind, totally relevant. Sam looked up at her carefully, from under his lashes. She was smiling and that made some of the tension in his shoulders relax.

"Um. Okay, that's kind of hot?" he offered. He'd have scratched his head, but she had her hands on his wrists.

Jess grinned and kissed his cheek. Her face was so smooth and pretty and Sam was just caught in the angles of her. "That's what they all say. All I mean, I have seen a lot of shit, okay? Like, people who have fetishes they can't deal with but want anyway. Pain, humiliation. Fucking baby diapers. Name your freaky kink."

Sam nodded, as if he had a clue. Clubs and things, he'd skirted the edges of that, and gotten a headache from the lectures of people telling him he was too young or too confused or whatever. Like he had a choice. "So you're saying I'm not the freakiest thing ever?" he hazarded a guess.

Jess shook her head, her grin fading to something steady and serious and full of a compassion that made Sam want to just shove her off and run. "No, you are. All the rest of them acted like they actually liked it even if they weren't so sure they did. You- you act like someone's making you do it," the last came slowly, like she was just figuring it out as she said it out loud.

Sam opened his mouth to say yes, to say something and stopped when the words just didn't come out. He stared at Jess, still, mouth hanging open and struck by pure vicious helplessness. He hadn't exactly planned to tell her the full truth, but anything was enough. It had been so long since he'd even tried to talk around the edges of that month, of the silence wished on him. He'd almost forgotten what the full weight of that curse was like, heavy, sucking the air out of his lungs.

Jess looked like she was going to say something, but Sam just shook his head. He pushed her off his lap, gentle and careful not to jar her, before he jumped up to run to the bathroom. The tile felt cold and the porcelain of the toilet was even colder under his hands while he lost his dinner and most of his lunch.

He didn't even realize Jess had followed him until he felt her hands, light and gentle, stroking the hair off his forehead and whispering nonsense in his ear. "It's okay, Sam," she whispered. "It's okay."

When his stomach was empty she poured him a glass of cold water and let him use a spare toothbrush until the taste was out of his mouth.

"You must think I'm kind of pathetic," he said and gave her a helpless smile.

"No, just a little messed up," she said. "C'mere." He came. Let her tug him into a kiss, slow and careful. "Do you like it with me? Straight up," she said, voice soft, but obviously an order.

"Yeah." Sam flushed all over again. "I've never really done anything like this before. Not. It's usually just one time things. Sex. You know?"

"I know," Jess said, and that compassion was back, like she really did know. Did understand. "Let's just get some sleep, okay. Tomorrow we can try something. I have an idea, if you're up for it."

There was a hint of mischief in her smile and Sam found himself smiling back. "Depends what it is."

She kissed the corner of his mouth, lightly, brushing a dimple. "You're really hot when you smile," she told him. "And you'll also need to wait until tomorrow morning."

In the morning, Jess made coffee and toast and settled in his lap, whispering in his ear. "Let's play a game. You can be the cute virginal high school lad, and I'm gonna be the vixen that seduces you. How about it?"

Sam laughed out loud, shaking his head. "Well, I can see you as a vixen okay. The other one's a little sticky, seeing as how I didn't make it to high school a virgin."

Jess giggled and smacked him lightly on the back of the head, like they'd never had a serious discussion about anything in their lives. Sam loved her a little for that. "I'm not remotely surprised. Now, it's called an imagination. Live it, love it."

"Yes, ma'am," Sam murmured, his voice dropping a register into something low and teasing. He didn't usually do a lot of teasing, but he'd heard Dean do it before with the parade of pretty girls. He knew how, even if he wasn't good like that.

"Ma'am is right." Jess smirked and slid out of his lap, climbing over to the bed and beckoning him to it. There was a new blanket spread over it, thick and visibly coarse, like burlap and wool. "Now let's get you naked, little boy," she teased, and tugged the shirt over his head when he lifted up his arms.

Her fingers grazed over his right shoulder, toying with the carved lines of the intertwined pentacle tattooed there. "So, that's pretty cool. Your tat. You still haven't told me what it means, though."

Sam grinned, managing to relax a little, because the easiest thing was just to make it a joke. "It banishes embodied demons. You know, as opposed to demons possessing people. Theoretically. I found it in a book," he added after a moment's thought.

"Demons, huh? Cool," Jess proclaimed and tossed his shirt into the corner. Sam almost had to marvel at how she'd just tricked him into relaxing. Girl was good. The she went for the pants, shoving them down his hips and he forgot all about it. "No underwear? Naughty."

She smacked his ass lightly and Sam just raised an eyebrow. "You're the vixen, ma'am. I'm just a sweet and innocent boy."

Jess nodded slowly and cupped a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down so that he was meeting her eyes. "Yes. You are. You are," she said, with that steady sureness of herself and of him that made Sam quiver. Like she could be steady for them both.

She pushed him down naked on his back over the blanket and he gasped, spine almost arching off the bed at the feel of it. The feel of it was even rougher than it looked, sharp and harsh on his skin. His cock twitched and he bit down on his lip. "Feel good?" Jess asked softly. Her hands on his hips were as gentle as the blanket under him was harsh. He was trapped between the sensations and could only nod once, like his dick didn't answer for him. "Good. Tell me if it doesn't. That's an order."

"It's okay," Sam whispered. "I'm always good."

Jess stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and shook her head. "You're always nothing because there is no always," she said. Her lips teased at the hollow points of his shoulder, the bends of his elbows and wrists. "This is the first time, remember? And we'll figure it out together."

"Figure what out?" Sam managed before she grabbed the wrists and tugged them up over his head, fast, but gentle. He gasped when he felt the tickle of the cuffs against the outside of the wrists. More a tease than anything right now, when Jess rubbed his wrists against them without buckling them on.

"Figure out what, ma'am," Jess urged, smiling a little when Sam repeated the words after her like a schoolboy. "Figure out what you like and what you don't. And I think you like these." Sam nodded and kept his body perfectly still, while she cuffed his wrists and then his ankles.

He'd used restraints before, but hers were different, padded, more for play than to really keep him here. Somehow that was hot. Looking up at her smiling face, her smooth skin and swaying body and knowing she was just playing. She was doing this just because she liked him.

"I like it when you kiss me," he whispered. Jess grinned like he'd made her a present and she did, pushing him hard against the horrible wool and soothing him down with her warm, soft body. Kissing him with her hot, wet mouth.

She kissed him everywhere, starting with his mouth, down his neck and over his shoulders. Across his flanks, just steady and hard enough to keep it from tickling. She licked over the head of his cock and the skin between ass and balls until he whimpered, and then she went down to kiss the insides of his spread knees.

"I like kissing you too," she told him, as she pressed her mouth to the soles of each foot. "You're gorgeous."

"Jess," he whispered. "Jess."

She arched up, breasts moving gloriously smooth against her skin, nipples pointy and pink and he wanted to lick them so bad. Wanted his hands on her, but they were tied down and he could only whimper into his bonds while she slid her legs over his thighs, straddling him.

"What if I asked you not to fuck anyone but me unless you actually want to?" she whispered, while she peeled the condom and fitted it over his dick with hands that were almost too gentle and left his hips twitching against air. Sam couldn't answer, only shook his head.

"What if I said it was an order? Only sex you want, Sam," she hissed, as she pressed herself right down over his cock. Hot and smooth and wet, closing in on him. So tight he thought his eyes might roll back in his head.

"… try, ma'am," he mumbled helplessly. As though could try anything but whimpering at the sensation. Her body, the motion of her breasts swaying, her gentle hands, the tangled restraints and the viscous bite of the blanket, all at once. "I'll try."

She rode him hard, and when he’d come, she stroked him back to an erection with hands that were too gentle, and his teeth gritted against the sensation. Overstimulated, gentleness shot through with pain that didn't actually hurt. And again and again, until he was red faced and dripping with sweat. Fucking air and shooting blanks out his sore dick.

"You're beautiful," she told him and he just twitched and shook his head. She wiped his forehead down with a cool cloth and undid his hands and ankles. "I bought you a present," she said, about the time that Sam remembered he had a brain and vocal chords again.

He gave a half shrug, too fucked out to worry about it. "You didn't have to."

"I know." She smiled and tugged open the nightstand, pulling something out of the drawer and laying it on Sam's naked, sweat and semen stained belly.

He blinked and stared picking them up. Wide bands of black leather. Four of them, one for each wrist and each ankle. His breath caught in his throat with a tearing sound. "This is- what's this for?"

"For you," Jess whispered. For the first time since Sam had met her she looked a little uncertain. "To remind you that you're trying. For me."

"You barely know me," Sam said, louder than he'd meant to, the words coming out in a snap. He didn't feel anger. More like a stomach clenching terrified awe. He fingered the leather cuffs carefully, testing out the softness of them, the solidity. His eyes itched and prickled worse than the rest of his skin and he felt stupid for wanting to cry.

"I know enough to know you deserve better," she said. Just kneeling back next to him, not touching. "I know enough to want to be your better. If that's okay with you."

Sam looked into her blue, blue eyes. Even out of costume he thought maybe she really did look like an angel. Maybe this was what angels looked like. Maybe she would be enough to fulfill the terms of the curse, bring him to heel, make it okay. He could choke on how much he hoped for that.

He picked up the cuffs, weighing them on his palms. "You'll need to help me with these," he whispered. The buckles were intricate, too complicated to get on for just one person. Jess just smiled like he was actually an amazing thing that was happening to her instead of the other way around.

They fumbled with the cuffs together, fastening his wrists first and then the ankles. Not loose, not loose at all. Tight enough for Sam to feel the bite, to know they were there all the time.

It wasn't the end of the curse and he wasn't free, but Jess touched him and he liked it and it was so much better than it had been in years. There was only Jess until the day she burned alive.

\

Jess was in the ground for exactly three months before the itch, the need, got bad enough to make Sam finally break his promise. Three months of screaming in his sleep seeing her, seeing everything he wanted to just forget about, just be over already. He couldn't get over it because it never went away. Days and nights of cold showers and sleeping directly under the AC, not touching anyone, because human skin on his made it worse. Not even touching himself.

Three months of Dean watching him constantly like he might explode at any moment. Always waking him when the dreams got too much, which meant Dean couldn't be sleeping much either. Three months seeing Jess under his eyelids. Jess with her mouth open, her wide pretty mouth that had loved him, open in a scream she couldn't voice.

The itching in the knots tattooed on his thigh just got worse and worse and his dreams shifted from Jess to that month in the dark and everything that came after.

On the three-month anniversary of Jess' death, Sam ditched Dean for the space of twenty-four hours, muttering something about a favor for a friend. Dean pursed his lips, but shrugged and muttered something back about Sam being a big boy. Sam figured Dean probably knew what he was ditching him to do. Dean had seen him doing it before, as kids, enough that he had to know and probably didn't even care anymore. That thought had him flushed through with a shame he couldn't put into words.

The cuffs, the ones he'd kept hidden under his long sleeves and longer jeans for the space of years, didn't come off easily, but he finally got them by sliding the point of his knife between leather and skin. It left thin cuts on his wrists and ankles where they'd been and Sam had the vague hope they'd scar.

Sam buried the cuffs Jess had buckled on him in the soft earth in an open field in Northern Louisiana, because California was too far. He made a marker out of thick black rocks and rotten wood. He said all the words he couldn't tell a living soul to her because she was dead now. Mumbled everything, about Mom and Dad. Dean and hunting. The creature in Islip and the things it had done to him.

He spoke with his cheek pressed against the filthy marker until he was bruised and dirty. Empty of words. He didn’t cry. He got back into the shoddy little Dodge Neon he'd hotwired back up north and gunned it all the way down to New Orleans, straight to the nastiest looking little shanty of a sex club that let him through the front door.

He hadn't done this since Jess, had thought once he'd never do it again, but the itch in his body and the twitching in his brain was driving him insane, like he was craving heroin instead of sex. Like every other time he'd tried to fight the curse.

It was surprisingly easy to catch the eye of the only guy in the club bigger than he was. Tall as hell, hair done up in dreads and smoking something that made Sam gag. He looked up and met the guy's eyes and then lowered his and that was all it took.

Ten minutes later he was bent over a table with his wrists shoved over his head and all he could think was that there wasn't going to be an angel this time. Just dick, hot and hard, and a rough voice in his ear. A rougher voice in his head, telling him that maybe he deserved this. Jess was dead. Jess was never coming for him again and that was his fault.

The guy left him with an ass covered in wide yellow and black bruises, bad enough to make him squirm the whole way up back to where he'd left Dean. That night Sam slept without dreaming for the first time in three months.


	4. Chapter 4

  
March 2007

"Hey, I found us some evil to kill," Dean called from the doorway and Sam just looked up at him, saw that joyous on-the-job expression and grinned. Seeing his brother happy was always a bonus. "Over in sunny Long Island."

Sam leaned back from the laptop he'd been hunched over. "Long Island, huh? We haven't been there in a long time," he said softly.

Dean just blinked and shook his head. "Were we ever on Long Island? Dude, you're thinking of Staten Island or something. The mutant crocodile spirit?"

"Um. Early Alzheimer’s there, Dean?" Sam muttered. Islip. He couldn't remember ever even saying the word since then. "Long Island? Islip?"

"Dude, we've never been to Islip before, I'm sure." Dean looked blank for a moment, before shaking his head again. "You're on something, aren't you?"

Sam stared down at the scratched up motel furniture in front of him and one fist clenched against his thigh where the red knot tattooed over skin itched right through his jeans. "Whatever," he said. "I guess we're going there now."

"Yeah!" Dean brightened. The job was obviously on his mind. "That's where we're going, exactly. Islip. Check this out." And he dropped the fistful of newspaper clippings he'd been carrying, scattering them like dirty snowflakes across the desk and Sam's lap.

Sam took a slow breath and picked one up, turning it over. "Disappearances," he muttered. "The Islip Creature. Wow, isn’t this familiar."

"You heard about this thing before?" Dean asked brightly. "Why didn't you bring it up, we could have hunted it down." Sam stared over to where his brother was almost bouncing on the bed. He just looked so happy, grinning and so very pleased with himself.

Sam almost choked on his own tongue. He just didn't get it, even though he'd pretty much known that Dean remembered nothing. Not the hunt, the creature, the days he and Dad had spent in that basement while Sam searched for him. Certainly not the month after that. But he didn't even remember being there at all. Nothing.

It was enough to make Sam wonder if he was the one who was crazy here. Like maybe it had never happened at all.

"Hey, Sammy, you okay?" Dean asked and Sam looked up to see the vivid uncertainty in his brother's face. "We could do a different gig if you want to, if you've got something better in mind."

Sam shook his head, still watching Dean watch him. He wasn't sure what the point of going back was, but maybe… maybe it was there. Maybe it was the thing doing this. He wasn't that kid anymore and maybe, maybe this time would be different.

"No," Sam said, sounding steadier than he felt. "No. We go finish this thing. Long Island it is." He pounded his palm against the desk, feeling the hollow smack of the wood against skin.

They tracked the disappearances down to what was more than likely a ghost by the first week of April and Sam wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that it was all this was. Nothing but a damned ghost.

"She said, stop touching me. Stop, stop," the boy in the blue sweater who'd said his name was Mike whispered. He stared down at his hands, at his coffee cup, at anything but Sam's face. Sam kept it arranged in quiet sympathy anyway, just in case. "She had blood all over her arms. Dripping everywhere."

"Did she look familiar?" Sam asked gently.

"She looked like Jenny Dursley, the chick that killed herself," Mike said. "I think it was just a nightmare I had, you know? From reading the paper, because they had pictures. I mean, Jenny went to my school, but I didn't know her too well."

Sam watched Dean make a face from somewhere behind Mike, but ignored him. For once Dean making faces was just not going to distract him.

"You knew about her, though," Sam prompted. He watched while Mike's face opened in a kind of relief, like someone had given him permission to just spill his guts over everything. Some days it amazed Sam how easy it always was to get people to talk.

"Everyone knew about her," Mike said, the words coming out in a rush. "I mean, dude. She was like, well, everyone said she was like, some kind of weird virgin for Jesus or whatever, like this was Mississippi or something."

"But?" Sam asked and Mike shrugged.

"But, one day, it was like bam. Whole new Jenny. She got weird and, like, kinky over night. Like, snap your fingers and virgin girl is the town bike. Guys, girls, pets- anything, like she couldn't say no anymore. Like a porno, not like real life." Mike gave a loud, bewildered laugh and shook his head. "Hot though. She like, got on her knees for the whole football team. I was there, she even did me."

Sam was so busy watching Mike he didn't notice when Dean slid onto the bench next to him, not until his thigh was pressed right up against Sam's. Dean leaned up on his elbows, giving Mike an intense look that Sam could actually see scaring the shit out of the guy, like Mike's brain was transparent. He shrugged. Classic Dean.

"Sure, sounds real hot," Dean said. Icy, like he probably hadn't rented that porno often enough to grow hair on his palms. "And you didn't think that meant that there was possibly something wrong? That she needed help, not a gangbang?"

"How should I know! We weren't friends or anything," Mike hissed, drawing back into himself so fast Sam could almost hear the slam as all the information they needed got tugged away. Sam glared at Dean and kicked him in the ankle, but Dean didn’t even blink.

"You fucked her, didn't you? Had no problems taking advantage. No wonder you feel guilty now. Shithead," Dean hissed.

"Dude, what's your problem?" Mike said, hands held up defensively. Sam felt like echoing the question and he put that into his own icy stare and a second kick in Dean's direction. "She's dead anyway and I had a- a bad dream or whatever. You don't need to be an asshole."

Sam was waiting for Dean to kick him back, but he didn't. Instead Mike turned back to him, like ignoring Dean was even possible. "Anyway, that's it. She got all freaky slutty and then she cut her wrists. Anyway, I gotta go." He got up and went and Sam didn't bother to try to stop him.

"I should have kicked his ass," Dean muttered at Mike's retreating back.

"I should kick yours! Dude, you just scared off our witness." Sam glared and Dean didn't even have the grace to look ashamed of himself.

"He already told us everything we need to know. We got the name and the history, now all we need is to look up the grave and it's done," Dean said with a shrug. Sam's anger seemed to slide right off him and that just pissed Sam off worse.

"He might have known more," Sam protested loudly. "If you'd given me a few more minutes-"

"Look, I don't care what he knew, Sammy," Dean said. His expression was surprisingly soft, like he wasn't being a first class jerk. "You don't treat people like that. As far as I'm concerned, he asked for it."

"What, you're taking the monster's side?" Sam scoffed. "Doesn't sound like you."

"Hey, we're salting and burning it, no problem," Dean said. "I'm just saying, this spirit isn't the only monster. That's all."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever, Dean. Way to grow a conscience about sex in your old age."

Dean stood up, palms slamming into the vinyl table so fast that he made Sam flinch. "I never! I never fucking treated anyone like that, Sam."

Sam shrugged, shoulders caving downwards and his gaze sliding to the floor. "I didn't say you did," he whispered.

"How could I?" Dean continued, like Sam hadn't spoken. Loud at first, and then voice so soft it was barely audible. "I saw what they did to you. People like that."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Sam said, talking over Dean before Dean finished his sentence. He got up even faster than Mike had and evaporated before Dean had the chance to say another word.

He was too sure it would have been, 'so tell me' and he didn't think he could take that again.

\

They found Jenny's grave under a flowering cherry tree. It was marked by a thin, tall stone, perfect for a young girl's grave. An angel leaned over it, as if to offer some kind of protection. For some reason it reminded Sam of Jess and that made his breath catch. Jess who got her reward for loving him, for being with him.

He knelt by the grave and figured it was just one more reminder of everything he shouldn't even try to have. Dean came up behind him with a pair of shovels slung over his back, whistling with a cheer fake enough to make Sam wince.

"Let's get to work," Dean called, tossing one of the shovels to Sam. "We've got another hour, tops, before she goes active and starts scaring the local fuckheads again."

It took a little under fifteen minutes to shovel enough dirt off the coffin to get the thud of shovel on wood, but an hour was way too generous.

Because that was when the wail began, a high pitched, girlish shriek that made Sam flinch and open his eyes. Jenny Dursley, standing over the grave, trailing her bloody ragged arms before her. Her face was a young girl's; she'd been no more than fifteen when she died. Sam wasn't sure, but he thought that from the rictus of her face, as if she died trying to scream.

"It shut my mouth," she said and it took Sam a second to realize her screaming had stopped and that she was staring. Right at him, with those dead dark eyes. "It shut my mouth," she said again. Sam could see her mouth, small and blackened, flickering. There was something, like a smudged tattoo of a thick red knot tied around it.

His hand went up to his own mouth tracing the invisible lines. "It shut my mouth so I couldn't tell!" she wailed. Her thin, grasping hands reached for Sam and he didn't even blink, didn't move to get away.

The next sound he heard was the crash of a shotgun. Rock salt slammed Jenny in the chest, shattering her into shards. Sam winced at the impact.

"Dude, what the hell," Dean hissed and shook him by the shoulder. "You shoot the creature, you don't stare at it and let it grab you."

"Sorry," Sam muttered numbly. He couldn't think, just kept shaking his head. Like him. She'd been like him. "I thought she might have something to say."

"She's a ghost. Who cares what she has to say?" Dean said, sharp as the retort of the shotgun. He shook his head. "Let's just finish this, okay? You can be a freak later."

"I want to talk now!" And there was Jenny, reappearing right on top of them almost. Sam nearly jumped, because fuck, she had to be a strong spirit to come back this fast. "You listen to me! Listen. It shut my mouth."

All Sam wanted to do was ask her, grab her, make her say it. Make her say it if she could, because he couldn't. Dean raised his shotgun again, and Sam hardly knew what he was doing just that next thing he knew he'd shoved it right out of Dean's hands and Dean was screaming "What the fuck, Sammy?"

And there was Jenny, breathing cold, grave stinking air into Sam's face. "You know, don't you?" she said, softer, tilting her head so that it looked off balance, like it might just blow off.

"Know what?" Dean hissed. Between blinks he shoved Sam aside, putting his own body between Sam's and Jenny's. "What does he know?"

Jenny shrugged and looked right past Dean. She said, "You ask him. He knows. He wants to tell you, but it shut his mouth."

"Him who?" Dean said. Sam could see his knuckles, clenched white enough to be visible even in the dark, grasping the shotgun again. He didn't shoot it though, just glared at Jenny. "I'm listening, tell me."

"Him." She pointed at Sam "You're so stupid. Can't you see where it shut his mouth?"

Dean turned around and actually looked. Sam looked back, quiet and shaky, but meeting his brother's eyes dead on. "Sammy?" he whispered, confusion chasing fear in that unsteady green gaze. "What?"

"He can't tell you, stupid," Jenny hissed. She flickered in the dull light and flickered again, now standing almost toe to toe with Sam, swaying like she was hypnotized by him. "It hurt all the time and it laughed and it laughed and it laughed."

Then she whirled around, hair tangling over her eyes, facing Dean. She grabbed her skirt in both bleeding hands and tugged it up, showing Dean her thighs. "Do you see what it did to me?" she howled. Sam couldn't see from his angle, but he knew. There would be red knots tattooed on each thigh, itching and binding and horrible.

He willed her to go on, to say something, how to undo it, something, but the dead weren't on Earth to be useful to him. She just cried, "It shut my mouth!" one last time and flickered out like a candle.

Dean stared at the half open grave and then at Sam, lips tightening, hands clenched at his sides. Sam opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the words all got stuck somewhere and he ended up staring back.

Sam just stared until Dean took a jerky step forward and grabbed him by the arm. Then tugged him right back to the Impala leaving the ghost unburied.

"You didn't burn the bones," Sam whispered numbly when Dean pushed him into the passenger seat and went to close the door for him.

Dean leaned over him, spilling heat and the beginning flickering of an emotion Sam couldn't have put a name to. "I need her around," he said. "I want to hear what she knows."

Sam stared straight ahead, eyes on the windshield. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay."

"Sammy, I swear--" Dean began.

"I know," Sam interrupted, loud, loud words from numbed out lips. He wanted to say that he'd always known that Dean would help. That Dean would fix it, someday. He wanted to say he'd never given up hope.

But that would be lying. He couldn't even lie, not where it had shut his mouth.

Dean drove back to the motel in silence, stealing these incredibly obvious glances at Sam every two seconds that had Sam wincing. Sam didn't know what to expect, but whatever it was, it hadn't been Dean practically manhandling him down onto the bed the second the door closed behind him and reaching for the zipper of his jeans.

Sam just stared, shocked and huge eyed. He bit down hard on his lower lip and he could feel the quick stirring in his dick. "Dean?" he whispered, in a small, shaky voice. "Dean?"

Dean shook his head and pressed a hand down on Sam's shoulder, stilling him. His cock jumped again and he wanted to sink through the floor and evaporate. Dean. This was Dean. This was his fucking brother. He wanted to say no, no, no. Instead he lifted his hips so that Dean could tug down his jeans.

Spread his thighs easily when Dean pushed them apart. He was panting, hissing his breaths, right on the border of sobbing.

"It's okay," Dean muttered, but there was nothing okay about his tone. Sam looked down at his face. Nothing like arousal there, just a stomach deep horror that made Sam shudder in sympathy. He wondered if Dean was really that disgusted by Sam getting hard. He knew it was disgusting to want to be touched at all because nobody sane, nobody normal would want it. Especially not like this, like this, with his own brother of all people.

"Oh. Jesus," Dean hissed and that was when Sam could see what he was staring at. Not at his dick at all. Dean pressed his fingertips against the thick red knots tied on Sam's skin. "Oh, Jesus fuck, Sammy. When- What- How long? How long?"

Sam only shook his head and gave a slow, hiccuping sob. Dean pressed his fingers to Sam's mouth where the third knot, the invisible knot still pressed into his skin.

"It's okay," Dean mumbled. He pulled up and back, ignoring the fact he had Sam half-naked and hard in front of him. Like he didn't even see it. "We'll fix this. I'll research it. Figure out what did this and then. Then it's dead. Just dead. It's okay."

"I'm tired," Sam said. He drew back himself, onto the bed. His jeans were around his ankles, but he ignored them, tugging his knees to his forehead and curling up in fetal position. His cock ached and he was ten seconds from crying like some pathetic little kid. It had been three days since he'd last gotten laid, long enough that it was starting to bother him and it was really not okay.

"So sleep," Dean said, still soft and ridiculously gentle for how angry his face was. "I'll watch out for you."

"Can't sleep." Sam shook his head, suddenly he couldn't look anymore. He was itchy inside and he just wanted everything to stop. Stop hurting, stop thinking, stop so he could rest for a while. "I need to go out for a little bit, okay? You do whatever." He pushed himself to his feet, grabbing at his jeans and holding them up with one hand.

Dean was there in front of him, blocking the door when he got to it. "Go out where?" he said, sharp and steady. "To do what?"

Sam rolled his eyes and tried to push right past Dean but Dean pushed back. Sam could probably take him, he had the reach and weight on him, but not without hurting him and he wasn't willing to go there. "Take care of some stuff. Jesus, since when is this your business?" he muttered.

"It's the sex, isn't it?" Dean demanded. "That- all this time, that's part of it?"

Sam just shrugged, shoulders hunched, not even bothering to glare. There was no point pretending to be angry here, not anymore. "Don't ask questions I can't answer, Dean. Just let it go," he said softly.

Dean just shook his head. "Can we say, uh, no?" he snapped.

"Right," Sam sighed and made a face, all without looking up to meet Dean's eyes. "Is this gonna be like the time you locked me in the closet and tried to exorcise me for two days? Because when you said it was because you were worried about me, that really didn't cut it."

Even just looking at Dean's neck, Sam could see the angry flush spread over fair skin. That didn't help his aching dick or twitching brain one bit. Even screaming at himself that Dean was the last person he wanted to be with like this just made it worse.

"Dude," Dean growled. "You were just sixteen and I caught you with that psycho Terry kid. You- you think I needed to see that?"

"I'm sorry," Sam muttered back. "Okay. I'm sorry you had to see that. I fucking know it grosses you out, okay?"

"Wait. What? What?" Then Dean's hands were on his shoulders, shoving hard and fast enough to send Sam sprawling back. He barely had time to catch himself before he fell, and his whole body shuddered at the impact. "Are you insane? I wasn't grossed out, I was fucking terrified!" Dean shouted.

"I'm sorry. All right, I'm sorry!" Sam screamed back. "You think I wanted that?" His shoulders shook and he was scrambling back until he hit the bed with his heels.

"I was terrified that you were like, possessed or something, Sam. That something had gotten to you while I wasn't looking and that you- you looked so fucking trapped all the time." Dean's voice trembled and skidded down to a whisper. Sam wanted to just disappear, do something, anything to get that look off his brother's face. "And then I thought I had it wrong that it was just something in you… but I didn't, did I? I let it go and I shouldn't have. And now you're telling me that you're sorry."

Sam bit his lower lip and raised his hands in a gesture of hopeless dismissal. "Look, it's okay," he mumbled. "It's not like- I mean, I'm okay. You don't need to worry about me, I'll be back in a few hours and it'll be cool."

Dean shook his head and took a few quick steps until he was right in Sam's face again, pressing him back against the bed. One more quick shove and then Sam was falling back onto it, wide eyed and breathing too fast. "You need it like this?" Dean whispered, climbing over him. His hands pinched tight on Sam's arms, keeping him still. "That's what it is, isn't it?"

Sam's hips arched up against air and his arms spasmed in Dean's bruising grip. Everything about his body was screaming a yes, except for his witless, gibbering brain and his lying, useless tongue. "Not you. Please," Sam mumbled. "I don't- I don't want it to be like that. Please."

Dean's hands went lax and his mouth tightened. He shook his head hard, but he didn't let Sam up, not that Sam was struggling that hard to escape. When Sam forced himself to look up, Dean's eyes were green and animal wild in the sallow motel light.

Dean swallowed hard, a visible motion. Then a second time, before he said anything. "What about… what about Jess? With her- I came down and watched you sometimes, you know? At school, to make sure you were okay."

Sam nodded quickly. "Yeah, I knew," he whispered back.

Dean took a slow, whistling breath. "You didn't do that shit when you were with her."

In spite of everything, himself, the horrible look on Dean's face, Sam couldn't help a quick grin. "You weren't watching close enough."

Dean's fist slammed up against the pillow under Sam's head, hard enough to make him wince. "Yes, I was. I don't mean fucking bondage games, Sam. You think I care about that?" Dean hissed. He pressed the palms of his hands down on Sam's shoulders, hard enough to mark, and slid them up.

Sam wanted to come almost as much as he wanted to scream. It was so sick, so fucking wrong but for none of the reasons it should have been. He couldn't say, he could never have said that he didn’t want to. Not when he was fifteen and stupidly naïve and not now, just as stupid and even more messed up. Of course he wanted Dean, with every fucked up particle of himself.

And there was Dean on top of him and all Sam wanted to do was vanish. Dean who wasn't even fucking hard when his hips slid up against Sam, Sam could feel that. This was just Dean making a sacrifice or something, thinking that would help. Stupid fucking Dean.

"Just not like this," Sam mumbled helplessly. He turned his cheek, pressing it into the scratchy pillowcase underneath his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

"How?" Dean whispered, breath hot and tracing Sam's earlobe in a way that made him whimper. "Can you tell me how she did it?"

Sam shook his head. His thighs spread under Dean's urging hands, but his eyes were still clenched closed. "She just loved me, that was all," he said, plain and simple. Plain and impossible.

Dean went still against him, so suddenly Sam gasped.

"Oh," Dean whispered, slow, like he was fitting in a puzzle piece. "Oh." Then Sam could feel him move, hands gone suddenly, shockingly gentle, as if the violence had drained away into stillness. Sam didn't know, couldn't know what Dean was doing, until his lips brushed over Sam's. "That's good. That's really good, Sammy. I can do that easy."

Sam's lashes fluttered as his eyes came open. Wet. He could feel wet on his cheek and Dean's eyes were as much gold as green when they looked down at him, so full of some expression that Sam couldn't name, but that he recognized. "Dean?" Sam murmured.

"Shhh… it's okay, I wasn't sure I could do- but I can do this," Dean said and he almost smiled. His fingertips brushed over Sam's cheeks, tracing out the lines of tears. "We'll figure this out now."

When Sam's hips moved up against Dean's body, he could feel him, hot and starting to get hard. Hard enough for Sam to feel through two thick layers of jeans and that made him gasp and tip his head back, exposing his throat in submission. Exposing everything for Dean to take if he wanted it wanted Sam. Dean kissed him on the vulnerable curve of his throat, lips pressed to the throbbing pulse point. Then down, sliding under Sam's shirt, kissing the intricate interwoven pentacles Sam had gotten tattooed there at eighteen, just before leaving for Stanford.

"Okay," Sam said. His eyes were wide open as he looked up at Dean and his breath came in hitching sobs. "Okay."

\  
In the morning Sam woke up first, stretched out taut with Dean's body wound all around him. Hot and sticky, the thick salty stench of sex all over both of them. Sam almost laughed, and wondered if this counted as kinky freaky after everything he'd done up until now or not.

Dean grumbled in his sleep when Sam pulled away and Sam couldn't help the grin that stole over him. "Sleep," he whispered into Dean's ear. "It's still early." Dean must have really needed it, because he just grabbed the pillow Sam had been sleeping on and hugged it to his chest before falling right back asleep.

Sam ran out to the corner 7-11 and came back with two huge cups of coffee, a local newspaper and a thick pad of yellow paper. He put one cup on the nightstand by Dean's head and retreated with the other to the desk, hunching over the pad and starting to scribble.

He looked up sharply when Dean started to move. He smiled to himself when Dean went right for the coffee like a homing beacon.

"So, the stories about the Islip Creature go back decades," Sam said, when Dean had rubbed enough life into his eyes and caffeine down his throat to listen.

"Do they?" Dean asked carefully, and the sleep seemed to clear out of his expression like magic. "No kidding. What about those stories?"

"They-" Sam started and then stopped, shaking his head. His tongue felt thick, heavy, but his body was glowing and he could still smell Dean all over his skin. Dean was watching him from under thick, messy eyelashes and the beginnings of a cocky grin that made Sam want to smack him or just grin back. He could do this.

"When I was up at Stanford they had the most amazing research library. I read up on all kinds of things really. I mean, every American legend out there and a lot of imported ones too. Werewolves. Banshees. Everything, right?" he said. His hands moved as he spoke, clenching and unclenching in broad gestures.

"What do you suppose kind of legend the Islip Creature is?" Dean asked softly, head tilted in inquiry.

"Like, just everything," Sam went on, as if Dean hadn't chimed in. "Do you know anything about Incubi or Succubi?"

"What, like sex demons?" Dean said. He leaned forward, watching Sam carefully. "They feed off sexual energy, right?"

"Yeah. Exactly." Sam nodded without really looking at Dean. He clenched his hands and rested them down on his thighs. "There are different flavors, though. Some of them are supposed to prefer the willing, the more willing the better. They feed off the desire of their victim."

"Okay. So help me out here, some of them don't?" Dean muttered. He stared down at the now empty coffee cup and then started to methodically tear the Styrofoam to pieces.

"Well. Corrupting innocence is also a very powerful act," Sam continued on. His face got redder, like he was pressing up against a wall. It was hard to breathe. "Theoretically, I mean. You could have a variation that went for that."

"Huh." Dean nodded and scratched his head before he went back to ripping up the coffee cup and scattering the bits over the bed. It was the kind of thing that normally annoyed Sam half to death, but now he was feeling the urge to do that too. "Okay, well, theoretically. How would you kill a son of a bitch like that?"

Sam shrugged. "You wouldn't. It's a demon walking on earth, there aren't many things like that Colt out there that could really destroy one. You could send it back to hell, though."

He could hear Dean catch his breath from across the room. "Okay. So, you do that. Send the fucker to hell. What happens to its victims? They go free?"

Sam shook his head, gaze dropping to the floor. "Not really. They go on like before. But sometimes a little revenge is nice."

"Yes," Dean hissed. "Yes it is. But, is there a way to-"

"I wish I could help you out there," Sam interrupted. His voice was soft and fervent. "But that one you're going to have to tackle on your own."

"Right," Dean said. He smacked his palms together and leveraged himself out of bed. "Right." Sam blinked and between blinks Dean was right up next to him, staring down. He caught Sam's chin in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the cheek. "Hey, I will. I will. I swear to god." He sounded so steady, like he was daring Sam to believe him.

Sam nodded. "Cool," he said, and tugged Dean down by the shoulders, catching him in a kiss.

Dean was mostly in his lap and panting against his mouth when the kiss broke. Sam smiled at him, at how easy it was for him. He wished he could be like that for Dean. Maybe. Maybe he could. It felt just plain weird to hope.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean whispered. "If a guy wanted to go find this Islip Creature son of a bitch, theoretically, I mean, do you know where he could start?"

Sam grinned. "Sure. That's an easy one."

\

Irene Winston still read tarot cards, but these days she had her own shop. She had been in her twenties the last time Sam had clapped eyes on her and that was less than a decade ago. Now she looked closer to eighty.

That was all he could think about, seeing her now. There were so many things about Irene Winston he couldn't forget however much he wanted to, but it was the way she looked right now that was what his brain kept screaming at him. Desiccated, eaten alive, like she had spent those years being sucked dry.

The wrinkles were carved so deep in her skin now it looked like wood, like something ancient. Sam wanted to say something, but she just looked at Dean, spoke to Dean, like Sam wasn't there. And that was probably all for the best.

"It won't let you in," the Irene said. Her milky, sightless eyes were fixed right on Dean and she had a faint, bitter curve to her wrinkled little mouth.

"What do you mean let?" Dean muttered, more casual grumping than the anger Dean had been spitting at anyone close by the last day or so. Sam figured Dean wouldn't feel the need to be pissed at an old blind woman, even now, not without good reasons that Dean didn't know he had.

After all, Dean had never met, and had no reason to remember, pretty, possessed Irene Winston. Sam couldn't tell him, too close to the edges of the silence that bound him, so he just watched and twitched while Dean spoke.

When she smiled it was the same as it had been that day years ago, even if everything else was so different, and Sam had to bite his lip. Not make a sound, like being quiet would be enough to make this not real. "I mean, let. The house is its lair and all it allows is its prey. That would not be you." She nodded to herself and Sam could almost hear her neck creak.

"Innocents?" Sam said and was relieved to find he could talk after all. He almost flinched when she turned those sightless eyes on him and smiled again. That smile. Sam took a breath and ignored Dean's quick, searching stare. "It likes innocents," he said, firmer, not a question.

Irene nodded. "It likes their pain. That's the kind of pain it likes the best."

"That kind of pain? Be a little more general, why don't you, I almost understood you," Dean muttered, too low for Irene to catch, but pitched for Sam, who rolled his eyes in spite of himself.

Irene just gave a small, creaky shrug and pointed right over Dean's shoulder at Sam. "Why are you asking me?" she said. "Ask him. Ask him what he did for you."

And Dean turned around. He didn’t look surprised anymore, for all his lips parted a little and his eyes were green and wide when his gaze flicked over Sam. If it hadn't been for the ghost, Sam thought, the right words could probably have gotten Dean to believe Irene was just out of it. After all, she so clearly was. But if it hadn't been for ghost they'd never be here at all and Sam wouldn't be able to feel the prints of Dean's hands all over his skin.

He said nothing just stared right back at Dean, stiff and still. Silent. What it had done to him, it could force his silence, but it couldn't force him to speak.

"Sammy?" Dean asked softly, anger shifting rapidly to concern, to softness. The softness that was only for Sam. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Sam said sharply. "It's fine." He walked past Dean, right up into Irene's face, hoping she could see him up close. "Just tell us where it is," he hissed.

He didn't flinch when she touched him even though he could feel her too long, dirty nails digging into the flesh of his shoulder. Holding him back. He just stared her down. She smiled. "You take care. He might not be its rightful prey, but you, boy, it won't soon forget you," she hissed into his ear. "Be careful."

"Sure," Sam mumbled. "Thanks for the warning."

Her fingers dug deeper, enough to mark skin. She laughed, dry and cracked. "You didn't listen to my last one. Was I wrong?"

Sam didn't have a chance to respond because Dean was there. Dean with a gentle hand on Sam's shoulder and a rougher one on Irene's shoving her off of Sam hard.

She tottered and almost fell, bones creaking. "You don't understand," she said. "It's collecting. It sowed a measure of pain, and now it’s reaping the harvest."

With Dean in front of him, Sam could breathe. "Just tell us where it is," he said, in a soft voice that was anything but gentle.

She nodded. "You were warned," she said, and gave them an address.

"Do I have to kill that bitch?" Dean asked on the way out. His eyes were big and serious and his hand was on Sam's shoulder, soothing were the fingernails had left marks.

Sam couldn't help but laugh. He shook his head. "Why? Look at her and tell me what happened isn't enough. She wasn't a day over twenty-five the last time I saw her."

Dean's eyes widened. "Well, that's just gross. You think something's been feeding off her?"

"Could be," Sam said with a shrug. The gesture brought him into closer contact with Dean's palm, pressing it flat against his shoulder. He smiled.

Dean didn't. "So when was that? The last time you saw her?"

"Oh," Sam said, in a softer tone. "I think… it was May. Back in '98."

Dean nodded but Sam could see his jaw clench. "That long? I. I mean, that was a long time ago. So, why don't I remember being here?"

Sam could only shrug in response and know this was nothing like over.

When they got to the house Dean stopped at the doorway, just staring. "So, I've been here before, " he whispered. His eyes were huge with confusion and he traced his fingers over the doorway. "In 1998."

Sam just shrugged and scuffed the floor with his toe.

"You said we were here, when I first caught on to this hunt. Not just you. In Islip. Before," Dean prompted.

Sam nodded and whispered, "Yeah. I said that. So are we going in?" He nodded at the house. It was freaky how much it looked just like any other house in the whole subdivision. Big and new and shiny.

"You have a plan for taking this thing?" Dean asked, head tipping to the door.

Sam grinned outright. "Hey. I've been working on this since, oh, 1998. All I needed was the last piece of the puzzle."

"What's that?" Dean asked, eyebrow going up.

"You'll see. Hey, Dean." Without waiting for a response, Sam caught Dean's hand in his, threading their fingers together. The touch was warm, steadying. "Thanks."

"For what?" Dean said. His fingers tightened around Sam's, hard enough to creak.

"For being you, more or less." Sam pulled his fingers loose and straightened his spine. "I love you," he said. Then he turned and pushed open the door. It swung open as easily as it had the first time, as if it had just been waiting for his touch for all these years.

He stepped inside and wasn't remotely surprised when it swung shut behind him just as easily, cutting off the sound of Dean's shouting. "Sorry, Dean," he muttered. But Irene had warned them.

"Your brother is still boring," came a voice from the next room. A voice that had haunted Sam's dreams. Sam hissed in pain, almost doubling over with it when the tattoos on his thighs came to burning life. "But now you, Sam. You lasted so much longer than I expected and even now… well…"

Sam raised his head enough to see it walk into the room. It looked the same, neither male nor female, and glossy everywhere from hair and teeth to the shining toes of its boots.

"Have you been enjoying my gifts, Sam?" it asked in its smoothing, caressing voice.

"Actually, I was hoping I could return them. Cash refund, store credit sucks," Sam gasped out, straightening back up even through the pain.

"Well, your brother seems to have liked them," it murmured, stepping closer. "Does he know that I'm the one that taught you to take cock so well?"

Sam laughed. "Why don't you invite him in and tell him all about it?"

It cocked its head and took the last step to him. It put on cold hand on his arm. A gentle touch that made him have to suppress a flinch "No, I don't think so," it crooned. "You've gotten bold again. I think I'll remind you of your place."

"You do that," Sam hissed. It laughed its wild, low laughter. The way it always did when it was going to do something worse than hurt.

Sam pulled his arm away but it held onto his sleeve, tearing it easily so that his shirt was nearly ripped in half. Buttons scattered everywhere, revealing the dark, scattered lines of tattoos. He had goosepimples on the bare flesh of his arm and shoulder

"You're still pretty," it told him. "What did you hope for, walking right back home to me? Or did you miss what I gave you? I could give you more."

"Like you gave Irene? She was your servant, and now she's old and ruined," Sam said. His voice was steady, like it wasn't crowding him back against the wall step by step, smiling and smiling.

"Irene is weak. I offered her power and sex; she accepted the consequences. You're not so weak, I could offer you more." It showed its row of glossy, toothpaste ad perfect teeth when Sam hit the wall with a soft thud and he was backed up all the way, no more room to run. Sam swallowed hard. "Come on, Sam, be mine."

Sam shivered and it slid its hand around his body. Under the ruins of his shirt and over the trembling muscle of back and arm until it caressed his shoulder, right over the tattoo. And stopped. Just stopped, staring like it was stuck in honey and superglue. "What?" it hissed.

"No," Sam said. It was his turn to smile. Long time, such a long, long time, but it was his turn. "I'm not yours. But I did bring you a present. Just like the ones you gave me, right under my skin."

He watched it start to shudder, its beautiful, shining eyes start to blink, the light behind them growing brighter. "A banishing spell?" it stuttered. "You can't. You-"

"I just did," Sam said. "I know you'll enjoy the gift."

"You'll pay," it hissed.

Sam nodded, knowing that was probably true. Then he just watched, as the spell started to crack apart its body from the inside, pushing out shards of light and thicker shards of darkness. They spilled into a pool on the too clean wooden floor and it gave one last horrible shriek before disappearing.

Sam swayed on his feet for a few endless seconds before his knees buckled and he just sat down on the floor, staring straight ahead. He hadn't realized how much energy the spell was going to take out of his body. So tired.

The world was gray and narrowing around the edges. His head drooped, sliding down to his chest. He barely looked up, even when the door came crashing open and Dean shoved through the broken splinters of wood.

"Hey," he managed to whisper, throwing a vague smile in Dean's direction.

"You fucking idiot!" Dean screamed, with foot stomping energy Sam could only marvel at. It was kind of hot. He half smiled. "What the fuck was that? What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam shrugged, closing his eyes and letting his head slide down and down and then back against the nice cool floor. "S'all good," he told the ceiling. "I had a plan. Had one for a long, long time just like I told you. I just- waiting to get the balls."

"The balls?" Dean ground out. "You don't do this shit, Sam. This fucking half-assed-" Dean kept on ranting but Sam's brain stopped translating it into words.

Not until Dean was kneeling beside him, pulling Sam's head up until it was buried hard in his shoulder. Dean smelled good, like aftershave and clean sweat. Sam mumbled nothing in particular, and then shut up and listened while Dean told him he was amazing and stupid. That he had him and it was okay now and he was going to fucking kill him himself if he ever did that again. It was all kind of fireworks and made Sam dizzy.

"Cool," Sam finally said. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep right there, cradled against Dean's strong, steady shoulder.

/  
"You snore. And you're a heavy bastard too, you know that? You think I'm gonna carry you out of here if you don't wake the fuck up? Wrong," Dean was grumbling at Sam the next time Sam opened his eyes. There was sunlight in his face and he was back at the motel somehow another, lying sprawled over the bed.

"You carried me?" Sam whispered. "Wow."

Dean almost jumped out of his chair. "Shit. You're awake," he said, like that was a big accomplishment on Sam's part.

"Um. Yeah." Sam struggled up on his elbows, blinking a little when he realized he was totally buck naked under the blankets and then shrugging it off. Not like he had anything Dean hadn't inspected thoroughly by now.

The urge to piss wasn't as easy to dismiss. Sam tried to get up, and Dean was almost immediately at his side when he tottered off the bed and almost fell on his face.

"Where do you think you're going?" Dean demanded, grabbing his elbow to steady him. "Dude. You've been out for two days. I was gonna throw ice water at you."

"Dude," Sam muttered. "Bathroom. Audience is not necessary." Dean snorted. He half supported and half carried Sam there anyway, only letting go when Sam shut the door in his face.

He was right there and waiting when Sam stumbled out again, helping him back to the bed. "I think I want food," Sam said, slow and thoughtful.

"The vending machine had Doritos and snickers bars left," Dean offered. "I got you one of each. For whenever." He fumbled through a bag and grabbed the stuff, tossing it to Sam.

"Great, health food," Sam mumbled. Then he devoured it in slightly under a minute and looked around for more.

Dean just sat there and watched him from the other side of the bed, until Sam was squirming under his steady gaze. "What?" Sam finally muttered. "Did you write something on my back when I was asleep or something?" He tried to twist his neck so that he could see his own back, but Dean would have done it in his blind spot, the asshole.

"Sam," Dean said and the tone of it was enough to turn all of Sam's attention back to him. And then he didn't even say anything, just kept giving Sam that look. That weird, drippy look that Dean would make fun of if Sam had it.

Sam looked away. "What, okay? What?" he muttered. He had no idea what Dean was thinking, and for once he didn't want to know. He'd settle for him just not being too freaked out.

"While you were out, I went to look for her," Dean said, slowly, like the words were being stretched out of him on a rack. "The ghost chick."

"Oh," Sam said. He faked a yawn, badly, and didn't look at Dean. If it were good news, Dean would have spilled it by now.

"She was gone. I dunno if you getting rid of the demon did it or… I just don't know," Dean said, sounding soft and sorry and totally unlike himself. "There was no trace of her." It just made Sam want to howl. Instead he just took slow, even breaths and held them a little too long.

"It doesn't matter," Sam said shortly. "I'm hungry, let's get some actual food or something."

"Yes it fucking well does matter," Dean said, and that came out sounding sharp, angry, which meant he sounded like Dean. That helped enough for Sam to let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and turn his head enough to look at him. Dean, who was white-faced and clench fisted, glaring wildly, like he wanted to tear down the world.

"Dean--" Sam said and stopped. He pressed his palms against his naked thighs, feeling the tightness of the knots. That hadn't changed, but it didn't have to be as bad if Dean-- if Dean wanted to. Which was maybe a lot to ask, maybe too much. Sam looked down, studying the sheets carefully.

Dean's voice, when it came again, was still on the edge of rage. "Something did this to you and I can't do anything about it. I don't even know where to start. And now my only fucking lead evaporated."

Sam shrugged. His fingers tangled in the scratchy motel bedspread. "You make it sound like it’s a personal insult to you," he said, in a soft, almost neutral tone.

For a long moment there was only silence from Dean's side of the bed. Not even breathing noises and Sam found himself holding his own breath in sympathy.

"I just want to be able to fix this," Dean finally said. He scratched the back of his neck and then shook his head. "I'm supposed to take care of you."

"Dude, I'm twenty-four," Sam said and rolled his eyes. "I've been dealing with this a long time."

Dean's fist came down hard on the nightstand, enough to make Sam wince and bite his lip. "You weren't twenty-four when this happened to you. You weren't. I don't even know what happened. Even now, I don't know."

"Actually, you probably don't want to know." Sam gave Dean another long, careful look. "Look, let's not do this, okay? What's the point?"

"The point," Dean said. He turned around between blinks and then he was sliding over to Sam's side of the bed. Sam just sat there, eyes open and body unresisting, when Dean's hands slid around his arms, holding on hard. "The point is that something hurt you, Sam. The point is nothing else is going to. Not while I'm around." His eyes were green and sharp, animal intense and he showed his teeth in something that wasn't a smile.

Sam shivered and went lax under those hands. All but his dick, which suddenly decided it wasn't that tired and if he was hungry it wasn't for breakfast. "You can't promise that," he said softly and forced himself not to lower his eyes like this was some random fuck.

"Yeah, you know what? I can," Dean hissed. His hands slid down until they were pressed hard against Sam's. Holding them spread open and down over his thighs, over those tight red knots. "You're mine, Sam, okay? And that means I'm gonna keep you safe. And that means no one else is going to fucking touch you."

"You can't promise that," Sam repeated, but his voice was shaky as hell and his legs spread for Dean's touch like they were made for it.

Dean just shook his head. "You're mine. Say it," he whispered. His lips were so close, almost touching Sam's. Sam could taste his breath.

Sam just stared hard, unblinking. Then Dean kissed him and he'd expected a violent kiss, something to claim him and bind him up. Not the careful touch he got, an almost questioning kiss, like Dean was asking his permission. Asking for submission, not taking it. Sam shivered and let his lips part. Dean's hand slid up, cupping the back of his neck, but not before he stroked all the skin in between with those same careful hands.

He'd said it the other night, when Dean asked how Jess did it. She'd loved him. And that… that was almost enough to satisfy it, the twitching, maddening need of the curse gnawing at him. Almost. Here under Dean's hands, here was the rest of it.

Sam lowered his gaze when the kiss broke. "Yours. No one else touches," he whispered. He pressed his forehead into Dean's shoulder and shook with some emotion he wanted to call relief.

"I'm gonna fix this, Sammy. Fix it all the way, I swear," Dean said and pulled him close and tight. Sam just nodded and tucked his head against Dean's body.

"I believe you," he said. And it was true.  
____________________________________________

End Notes: So this was a trip. And thanks for taking it with me if you made it this far! Heh. I think it was Lois Bujold who said something about thinking of the worst possible thing you could do to your characters and plotting around that. Hence this story.

  
And the sequel is [Season of the Witch](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/21447.html)


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